Tibet, a country that finds itself at a crossroads between tradition and modernity, the rudimentary rural existence and the temptations of the city, is the subject as well as the backdrop of this strikingly beautiful fable. Tharlo, a goatherd, can still recite the huge indigestible chunks of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book that he learned as a nine-year-old. A simple man, he is not sure of his own age and lives by the black-and-white moral code of a child. When he is sent to the city to get an ID card, a chain of events is set in motion.
The use of sound is particularly effective. In the city, Tharlo is buffeted by layers of noise; at home on the steppes, he listens to wispy fragments of folk songs on his radio, ghostly voices from the past. Shot in monochrome, using long, meditative takes and locked shots, this is a film that requires investment on the part of the viewer. It repays the effort – it’s a rich allegory for a nation torn between past and future.
