The Giant Buddhas (2005) Reviews

• mix of the conventional and the new

  dumsumdumfai2005-09-10

  Saw this today at TIFF. The documentary is actually somewhat emotional, in that you can feel the ideals, the respect, the openness, and the doubts from that of the director or it's protagonists, through the structure of the movie. But then again the guy beside me nodded off. The doc combines more or less 5 different journeys/stories, if you will - and some surprises. One is of the re-telling from an Al-Jazzera's journalist; another from the perspective of an French archaeologist; a Canadian/Afghani actress; a local Afghani that lived in the Bamiyan valley; and the director's POV. *** possible spoilers**** The style mixes personal accounts, videos, pictures, and memories, of and on anything related to the 2 Giant Buddhas that was destroyed by the Talibans. These methods are like any conventional docs. These methods, through the 5 journeys give the documentary many personal levels/angles of emotional points of entry. And the camera, the music, the silences together regards the valley with warmth and respect. There are back stories, legends, comparisons, future plans that encompasses and paints a multi-dimensional sphere of sentiment on the subject. And there is even a brief use of FX to convey a dream sequence (the director pointed out). In the Q&A, the director indicated he will go back to the region to show the film, with an Arabic track (credit shows a German and English narrator versions), and as well as interpretors for the illiterates.

• Hope to see again

  abdull_malik2006-08-01

  Sallam to all who read my comment, I saw this movie in 27th July-06 Thursday in Bamyan in front of Buddah. when we start watching this document Movie i was just feeling that Nelofer Pazira is the only one who could do ,i am sure when making this film they went in to a great trouble, but surly at the end having a good result of making this this i really liked this Movie,it was about the destruction of the BIG BUDDAH OF my homeland ,Bamyan, which was destroyed by the enemy of our Honor our homeland, i am sure this was done by external authority,no Afghan people could not do this horrid action to his country,so now it is done and now we have to thank from those who are still thinking about that and try to show this to the world that we did't forget the BIG BUDDAH of Bamyan. The Gaint Buddahs was one the first film i have seen in whole my life about such a big treasure of the world.indeed this kind of movies should be seen for it shows the fact of something,this is a evidence to what had happened to the Buddah. Iam really thankful from the producer of this movie and the actress of this movie ,NELOFAR PAZIRA. i advise you to watch this document Movie i can not define the history of this but you got to watch this

• A Privilege to Have Seen

  alison-jasonides2007-01-01

  Feeling tired and spent after New Year's Eve festivities, I was scanning through channels and my eye caught the opening credits of this documentary. An impressive roster of composers were listed under "Music", making me pause and wait to see. What followed was an unexpected aesthetic, intellectual and visceral experience. Perhaps, as some other commenters have written, "Giant Buddhas" suffers from an identity crisis, alternating from straight documentary style to indie "art" movie. Visually, it does the same, presenting some sequences in a reportage style, as if shot using unglamorous digital, and others filmed as is David Lean was directing. This vacillation was not a hindrance to me: the bounty and quality of information and imagery confirmed the idea of how rich and deep this story of Afghanistan's Buddha's is. It is useless to summarize or highlight the flow and peaks of this epic poem to Afghanistan; devote an evening to it for yourself.

• Not much there.

  TurboBard2006-04-01

  I just saw this film at the Florida Film Fest and I can't believe that it made it into the fest at all. I am sure that the film makers went to a great deal of trouble, but the resulting film has almost no structure and no interest in Buddism. There was a great deal of hand held footage of the camera zoomed in and pointed at the ground as someone walked along creating the "Blair Witch seasick " effect. I did not feel that the filmmakers had a point of view that I did not agree with. It seemed that there was no point of view at all, just people poking around broken rocks. Again, I know how hard it is even to make a short film in your own back yard, so I feel bad saying this, but the subject is so rich that a much better film could be made with a different script and stock footage.

• a disappointment

  ndk532006-04-22

  I agree with the comment that the film had insufficient structure and no identifiable point of view. Lack of structure isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this topic would have benefited from a more straightforward approach. You don't know who is behind the camera half the time--that person seems to change. Who is in the UN airplane--is that Frei? Is that him in those meetings? In the segment in China when looking for the re-creation, who was speaking? Does Frei speak Chinese? Who was writing the letters to Nelofer Pazira and what was their point? I enjoyed the long lingering closeups of Pazira's beautiful face and especially those amazing green eyes, but they were completely gratuitous. If she were unattractive I'm sure she wouldn't have appeared in the film at all. Seemed like Frei was as interested in filming her as in filming his erstwhile topic. Don't blame him, but seems like that should be a different movie. Also as mentioned Frei did not succeed in connecting Buddhism in general to these statues. I saw this film with five others and none felt any particular historical or artistic loss at the destruction of the Buddhas. Did any modern Buddhists care about what was happening in Afghanistan? Seemed not. Maybe few even knew about the existence of these statues, or didn't care because they were only large and old, not beautiful. They were ugly in fact. The walking-around scenes were confusing. There is a scene in which Pazira climbs up inside then seems to be looking down on the Buddha's face--but it had already been blown up by then. I lost my bearings. This film needed a good disciplined editor I think, to give this raw material some shape and to clarify its point. Time spent lingering on Pazira's eyes could have been better spent on providing context. It should have been possible to present the Taliban's rationale directly from a Taliban. Maps showing where the Bamiyan Valley is exactly, where it stood on the trade route, and how Buddhism might have reached the area in the first place would also have helped. Also to identify what languages people were speaking and how the local Hazaris got to be there. Perhaps these details were missing in favor of a more subjective or "artistic" approach, but that seems to me more simply a lack of discipline than an expression of art. Still, in its favor, the music was very good though maybe local music might have been more fitting, and I give credit for simply exposing viewers to footage of a part of the world westerners rarely get to see.