[Quick Summary: The story of the Kundun, the 14th Dalai Lama, from childhood to his 20s and dealing with the Chinese take over of Tibet.]
This film's cinematographer has stated that the movie is "very much a poem, rather than a traditional narrative film," more of a "mood piece" than anything else.
I agree. The visuals in the script seemed more interested in evoking a feeling rather than laying out plot.
Below is my favorite scene on the page. I liked that I was never confused who was before me - the present (Tenzin Gyatso), past (Lhamo) or future selves.
EXT. HILLTOP DAWN
The body of the Dalai Lama's Father lays on a flat boulder.
Incense smoke curls into the air. Prayer wheels are turned, hand drums are played - the burial men stand off to one side, their hatchets and knives in view.
Tenzin Gyatso is present. He is the boy we know, but beside him stands the four year-old boy, Lhamo, from the beginning of the movie, and on the other side of him stands the boy who will play the Dalai Lama in the next section of the film - a boy about fifteen or sixteen.
Tenzin Gyatso wraps his brown rosary around his left wrist. The beads catch the brilliant afternoon light. The sixteen year-old Dalai Lama wears the same colored rosary around his left wrist.
The cutters move in to the corpse, and as we hear them begin the work of dismembering the body, the view pans up to the reveal the vultures circling overhead.
The last person leaving the hilltop with is the Dalai Lama as an older man - not a character from this movie - but a man of about fifty years, wearing glasses, wearing the same robes, the same rosary. Little Lhamo walks beside him.
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: Don't be afraid to write a little more in favor of clarity. The reader will forgive a few extra words, but won't if it is muddled.
Kundun (1997)(10/16/92 draft)
by Melissa Mathison
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