Wheel of Time Reviews

Werner Herzog's documentaries were once just an interesting side-bar to an illustrious career in boldly visionary fiction films, but a recent string of excellent nonfiction features now comprise an exciting new phase in this always adventurous director's career. Among them is this mesmerizing look at the one of the most important events on the Buddhist calendar: the Kalachakra Initiation, a 12-day series of rituals that's held every two or three years in a locale of the Dalai Lama's choosing. In 2002, this eagerly anticipated event, which seeks to awaken the "seed of enlightenment" and draws an estimated half-million pilgrims, was held in Bodh Gaya, India, where, some 2,500 years ago, Siddartha found truth and became known as the Buddha, "the enlightened one." The center of the celebration — on both the physical and spiritual planes — is the building and viewing of the sand mandala, dazzlingly complex circular diagram painstakingly laid out by a team of monks who use carefully calibrated pipettes or "chakpus" to funnel brightly colored grains of sand onto the elaborate design. Viewing the completed mandala is an essential part of the ceremony, but consistent with the Buddhist belief, its material existence is transitory; this marvel of human endeavor is swept away at the end of the ceremony. Herzog's camera camps out alongside the hundreds of thousands of saffron-robed monks and other pilgrims who have traveled from the farthest reaches of Asia, and many of whom have spent years on their journeys, taking two or three steps then prostrating themselves even on the rockiest terrain. The Dalai Lama's worsening health, however, throws a last minute wrench into the sacred proceedings and forces a heartbreaking cancellation of the entire Initiation. In addition to capturing the sights and sounds in and around the camp set-up by the initiates, intercut with an interview with the always affable Dalai Lama, Herzog takes a breathtaking side trip to the foot of the astoundingly beautiful Mount Kailash — a scared spot believed be another abode of the Buddha. Whether it's out of a sense of awe or simple respect for his subject, Herzog remains uncharacteristically unobtrusive throughout, although his out-sized directorial presence is often a welcome hallmark of his best documentary work. Here, however, one comes away relieved that the always adventurous director didn't insist on climbing Mount Kailash, or grab a chakpus insinuate himself into the circle of monks who train for years just to create a mandala out of sand.