Shambhala Movie Review — Berlinale 2024 — Sucharita Tyagi
Of all the films I watched at the Berlin International Film Festival last month, this one that I watched last, might be one of my top 5. The only Nepali film to not just screen at the festival this year, but also compete for its biggest prize, The Golden Bear!
Suno about this stunning movie from Nepal, made by Min Bahadur Bham, called Shambhala.
Shambhala tells the story of Pema, a new bride living with her new family up in the Himalayas where life is arduous but the indigenous people have their systems, their ways to earn livelihood, educate their young, and continue living in harmony with the world. However, this world isn’t too far from the corruption of patriarchy, gossip, and speculation. Once Pema’s husband Tashi goes away on business and local villagers begin to question her friendship with the local school teacher, even going to the extent of accusing her of carrying his child, Pema decides to clear her name, she must retrace her husband’s steps, find him, and convince him of her faithfulness, even though he refuses to return home, having bought into the rumor of Pema’s child not being fathered by him.
For Min Bahadur Bham, Pema is goddess-like, a bringer of life, the giver of birth in a barren landscape, but above all a woman. On her journey to find Tashi and bring him home, Pema, as cliched as this might sound, finds herself. Before she is married, her mother says to her, “My only daughter will not be a servant”, but nothing seems to have prepared her to be anything but. So as Pema finally heads out into the world only with her horse by her side, she finds her voice, and hidden under the goal of finding her husband, discovers her real strength. Even as Tashi’s brother Karma joins her on the way, seemingly to protect her, it’s HER who ends up being his savior, allowing him a release. Actor Thinley Lhamo as Pema is astounding as Pema. Quiet but never meek, silent but not speechless.
Cinematographer Aziz Zhambakiyiv, a Berlin Silver Bear winner himself, shoots the characters and the natural beauty of Nepal with reverence. In one memorable seamless shot, he glides his camera over people, scales the boundary wall of a monastery, comes back down to eye level, and enters a room where a monk meditates. To his lens also, Pema is seraphic, a greater being. When Pema dreams of happier moments, of being reunited with her husband, or receiving blessings from Rinpoche, everything slows down, the wind blows slower, colors change, and the frame you’re watching becomes the entire universe.
With that, we conclude my limited coverage of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. But there are a bunch of more things lined up on my Youtube channel, you please subscribe and wait and support, yeah okay?
My name is Sucharita, thank you for stopping by!
