Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Brandt Sponseller Dondup (Tsewang Dandup) is a Bhutanese government officer who has just been assigned to a small village. He's anxiously awaiting a letter from a friend in America. As soon as he receives it, he plans to meet his friend in Bhutan's capital, Timphu, and from there make his way to America, which he imagines of a land of great beauty and great opportunity, with "cool", beautiful women and an exciting lifestyle.Extending from the premise, Travellers and Magicians becomes a combination of a road film and a grass-is-greener film. Dondup receives his letter, but partially due to cultural formalities and niceties, he misses the bus he needed to catch to make it to Timphu--a 2-day journey--on time. Increasingly agitated, he meets up with a humble apple-seller and a Buddhist monk on the road, and eventually two more people join the group. While they travel, the monk very gradually tells them a parallel story meant to serve as a parable, which we see enacted.The structure and subgenres of the film provide a nice framework for two major, intertwined themes, both of them very Buddhist in nature. The subtler theme, most rooted in it being a road movie, is that of living in the moment, which is one aspect of mindfulness. The journey, here shown in a literal way, but also meant figuratively, is just as important as arriving at a destination. The more explicit theme, rooted in the grass-is-greener aspect, is a warning against the attachment to hopes, desires and dreams. Attachment is different than merely having hopes, desires and dreams. Attachment is a state where one stops being mindful of the here and now.Dondup keeps dreaming about America. In his mind, he's already there, and his appearance and behavior evidence this. He talks of how beautiful it must be, yet Bhutan, which is on the edge of South-Central China, in the Himalayas, not too far from Mount Everest and Nepal, isn't short on beauty. Exquisite cinematography keeps us aware of this, and stresses how Dondup cannot see what is right in front of his face. He also dreams of the job he might hold in America--perhaps he'll be an apple-picker or dishwasher, he muses. But he has a relatively well-paid and certainly well-respected position in his culture. He dreams of the women in America, yet he runs into a very beautiful and elegant woman on his journey who is young, single and very attracted to him. The grass-is-greener theme even rears its head by Dondup trying to block out live music that's right in front of him (thanks to the Monk with a dramnyen, which is a bit like a guitar) by playing western music on a boom box.At the same time, the parallel story told by the monk features a young man with similar dreams who inadvertently escapes to an unknown area where he too meets a beautiful woman who is attracted to him. The woman's husband has also achieved "the other side of the fence" in his grass-is-greener dream, but with the arrival of the young man, it backfires on him. Achieving the greener grass also ends up backfiring on the young man in a way, and he seeks a return home.It's important to remember that in Buddhism, these ideas are not presented in moralizing way, and they're not presented as something black and white. Hopes, desires and dreams are not considered bad things (and neither is attachment--the problems with such things are more matter-of-factly presented), and certainly, the grass could be greener somewhere else. Because of this, Travellers and Magicians writer/director Khyentse Norbu maintains appropriate degrees of ambiguity throughout the film. While doing so, he presents a story with important themes that is captivatingly told with beautiful cinematography and excellent performances. Don't miss this one.

grinna The comments I read on this movie about scenery and vista are a little over stated. Some Buddhist life philosophies come through - but take a lot of time and film to make simple points. The movie is good, but it could have been a lot better. Some scenes were shot in the same place, eg: you see the same part of the creek/river as they move slowly along a dirt road to Thimphu. The movie is filmed along a roadside as five people travel to Thimphu. A Buddhist monk tells them stories to pass the time; and then ,cut-in scenes of the Buddhist monk's story are seen(by the viewing audience)on film. A continuity-goof appears in this movie, the Buddhist monk disappears from the back of the truck, only to reappear again in the next scene. I was told by other commentators in this forum to go and see this movie on the wide screen, for its grandeur etc. but I felt a bit disappointed, it could have waited for the DVD to come out. I was hoping that the travelers could have reached Thimphu, I would have liked to see the city and its people. This story/plot reminded me of many other movies I have seen, rural person sets out to go to the big city, gets an education along the way.At the end scene, I was waiting for Dandup (the main character) to walk back along the road towards the young girl that he had fallen for. I think the director/writer missed a big opportunity here to serve the audience's expectations.As is my nature, I became suspicious that a large sports runner/jogger company had sponsored this movie; Dandup's runners are constantly shown. I understood that the director was demonstrating the clash of culture thing of Dandup wearing these runners in a Bhutan culture, but there were far, far too many shots of the runners. The movie could have been called, "Dandup's runners".

Lawrence In this, his second film, Khyentse Norbu shows how skilled a filmmaker he really is. An ordained lama, he studied independent film-making in New York and here it really pays off. While his first film, The Cup, was a well done portrait of life in Bhutan, Travellers and Magicians is that and much more. Taking his cue from, among other works, the great Ju Dou by Zhang Yimou, Norbu gives us a village official who longs for the excitement and money to be had in America.Sporting shiny white new athletic shoes, the official makes his way to the main road where he tries to catch a bus to Thimbu, first stop on his journey. But he misses the bus and soon meets up with an interesting assortment of fellow travelers--an old apple seller, a monk, and a farmer with his beautiful daughter. While waiting for the bus--or anyone driving who can give any or all of them a ride--they're entertained by the monk who tells a tale of a young apprentice magician who loses his way in a large forest and comes upon an old man and his much younger wife.Norbu intercuts the ongoing tale with different legs of the travelers' journey on the seemingly endless road. The editing chops on display here are truly impressive, marking this as the work of a director who really knows how to make a film grab the viewer. We see the young magician lying in bed at night, thinking only of the young wife, and dissolve to the official waking up in the morning, having no doubt thought of the farmer's daughter much of the night.This is much more than great editing; it gives us strong links between how we live our lives and how we imagine our lives should be lived. The tales we tell, the ones we remember, are those that inform how we feel we should or could do what we're not doing now. It's our memory of another story--what we read long ago, or what someone told us long ago--that gives us the unofficial subconscious laws we live by. That's what Norbu tells us in this great film.A giant leap forward from The Cup, Travellers and Magicians is a first class cinematic work that should be seen by many.Highly recommended.

Barbara Gershenson Love versus Lust... All of the actors were chosen from local Bhutanese people. The inner stories are the most fascinating. An inspiration to all. To young people hoping and dreaming for the material world's "gifts". To Westerners who have never imagined or seen the beauty and rich culture of Bhutan. Just be patient, for this movie will lead you on a journey which you could never imagine..... I learned new perspectives about Hope and Love. The stories don't follow the Hollywood model of the acts. But, for me this storytelling method is more like that of the fable, fairytale or morality tale like Eric Roehmer's Morality Tales. For me, this is a much more enriching art form. It's not your typical Hollywood movie, thanks.