Icarus Films | Release Date:May 13, 2016 | Not Rated
Summary:Filmmaker Zhang Yang (Shower, Getting Home) blurs the border between documentary and fiction to follow a group of Tibetan villagers who leave their families and homes in the small village of Nyima to make a Buddhist "bowing pilgrimage"-laying their bodies flat on the ground after every few steps-along the 1,200 mile road to Lhasa, the holyFilmmaker Zhang Yang (Shower, Getting Home) blurs the border between documentary and fiction to follow a group of Tibetan villagers who leave their families and homes in the small village of Nyima to make a Buddhist "bowing pilgrimage"-laying their bodies flat on the ground after every few steps-along the 1,200 mile road to Lhasa, the holy capital of Tibet. Though united in their remarkable devotion, each of the travelers embarks on this near impossible journey for very personal reasons. One traveler needs to expunge bad family karma, a butcher wants to cleanse animal bloodstains from his soul, another nearing his life's end, hopes that the prostrations will break the chain of cause and effect determined by his life's actions. [Icarus Films]…Expand
A beautiful film. It complete absorbed me in a way I did not expect. Tibet is gorgeous, but it was the ability to carry us along on a year long journey and at the same time let us get to know these characters that really is the most brilliant quality.
The thing I wasn't expecting about Paths of the Soul is that it wasn't trying what other movies have been dying to try out. In this case, it just tries something new and adds it to the default formula.