Sunday, August 16, 2009

Review: When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun

Grade: I will not be giving this movie a grade as it is not completed, we saw the first test screening of it last night.

When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun is a documentary by Dirk Simon that has been in the making for six years about the internal struggles of the Tibetan Freedom Movement.
The movie, that we saw, was actually really good. It had many interviews with activists and the 14th Dali Lama. The interviews were very thorough in describing some of the problems with the movement. They went over the history of the movement and discussed why being violent will not help their cause but at the same time if they do not get violent people in the rest of the world won't really pay attention. They discussed the political problems with the movement specifically the fact that other countries politicians refuse to support the Tibetan freedom movement at risk of losing China as an ally. The film also discusses the controversy surrounding the Beijing Olympics and the protests that were going on around the world at the torch running and a the Olympics themselves.

The cinematography was beautiful. A large portion of this film was shot in Tibet which is probably one of the most beautiful countries in the world as a large portion of it is in the Himalayas. The shots of the mountains and the towns and cities with all of the ancient architecture was amazing.

The movie still needs some work, as was discussed by the director himself. It is currently a little long and they will probably be cutting it down a little before it's official release. Other than that it was great and I would recommend this movie to anybody interested in learning more about the Tibetan freedom movement.

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