Tharlo
Across Asia • 2h 3m
Directed by Pema Tseden • Drama • With Jinpa, Shide Nyima, Tsemdo Thar • 2015 • 123 minutes
'Renowned Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden returns with his profoundly moving new feature [adapted from his own novella] about a Tibetan shepherd named Tharlo. Visiting a Tibetan town in Qinghai province to obtain a proper ID card from the local police station, Tharlo surprises Police Chief Dorje by reciting from memory a lengthy excerpt from one of Chairman Mao's essays. But things develop in a romantic rather than a political direction. To prepare for his ID photo, Tharlo needs his hair washed, and so meets Yangtso, a beautiful local hairdresser. Their courtship is both exquisitely awkward and enthrallingly suspenseful. Tharlo is smitten, but town-dweller Yangtso's ideas of fun are not quite Tharlo's, and he spends an uncomfortable evening with her at a local karaoke joint.
'This is a passionate love story with darker undercurrents, where basic pastoral imperatives such as protecting his sheep from hungry wolves run against Tharlo's discovery of the contemporary pleasures of smoking, drinking, singing and sex.
'Pema Tseden's beautifully modulated black-and-white palette captures rural Qinghai with impressive grandeur, while the smallest details of Tharlo's and Yangtso's courtship register with vivid immediacy. Yangshik Tso is a compulsively watchable Yangtso, alluring and mysterious in equal measure. Tibetan comedy star Shide Nyima is brilliant as a shepherd struggling to stay grounded while feeling his way into a bewilderingly modern world. Can his moral universe encompass the possibility of an entirely new life?'
Up Next in Across Asia
-
The Search
Directed by Pema Tseden • Drama • With Zong Zhi, Manla Jiepu, Dobe Dorje, Drolma Gyab, Lumo Tso • 2013 • 105 minutes
A director, his assistant, and a businessman drive through the Amdo region of Tibet, scouring small villages to find actors for their adaptation of the namthar of Drime Kunden, an...
-
Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Happy Hour
Directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi • Drama • With Sachie Tanaka, Hazuki Kikuchi, Maiko Mihara • 2017 • 317 minutes
A powerful affirmation of the immersive potential of cinema. HAPPY HOUR is a slow-burning epic chronicling the emotional journey of four thirtysomething women in the misty seaside city o...
-
Mrs. B., A North Korean Woman
Directed by Jero Yun • Documentary • 2016 • 71 minutes
"There are five kinds of families that buy us," says Mrs. B over dinner and drinks with fellow North Korean exiles living in China. "The first type, either the father or the mother is missing and the son can't get married. Then there are the...