Documentaries: Tibet in Song

This year's CIFF features a total of three Tibetan-Buddhist themed films, one of which I saw today. Tibet in Song was both a tour of Tibetan song and dance, and an extremely personal account of the filmmaker's own seven-year imprisonment in a remote Chinese prison. The film interweaves Tibet's political plight with the struggle to salvage its cultural traditions of the past millennium, one song at a time. Interviews with political prisoners focus on the power that certain songs hold over day-to-day life in prison; from the tortures that prisoners face when refusing to sing the Chinese national anthem to the spiritual strength derived from composing their own politically charged lyrics. Difficult and saddening as it is to watch a documentary on the suffering of a nation, Tibet in Song also shows the resiliency of Tibetan culture as it clings to the high pastures of remote villages and gets carried across borders by refugees whose songs tell not only of the old ways, but now bare the burden of prison cells and foreign oppression.

The remaining Tibetan doc, Tulku, is on tomorrow at 5:15pm at the Globe.