Word: cinema
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Gardner concentrates particularly on three individuals: a priest, a healer, and a fairly eccentric distributor of sacred fire. Keeping them straight, however, presents a somewhat difficult task--an almost unavoidable weakness in preserving the integrity of the cinema verite...
This weakness, however, is counterbalanced by Gardner's brilliant application of the cinema verite technique. Forest of Bliss lays bare a Benares we would see and experience had we been there. We are bombarded by sights and sounds: street noise, the silence of the river, the knelling of bells. We are tourists experiencing Gardner's "it," his ineffable sense of place and not an audience simply being led about like a dog on a leash. Forest of Bliss hangs before us nakedly exposed and uninhibited, without the protective cover of explication...
...what exactly is Gardener's "it"? The movie's subtle texture, effortlessly impelled by Gardener's deft editing, reveals that "it" is the sense of death that pervades daily life. Like cinema verite, "it" is based on an oxymoron. Forest of Bliss actually reasserts life by concentrating on the ceremony of dying. Vitality and color, charisma and charm, abound in the visages of the living inhabitants, most notably the fire seller, whose joie de vivre consumes the screen. And this juxtaposition of life with death necessitates audience observation, not verbal explanation...
...Cinema 57: 200 Stuart St., near Park St., Boston, 482-1222. Rocky IV: 12:45, 3, 5:10, 7:45, 10; Spies Like...
...Cinema: 955 Boylston St., Boston, 266-5151. Living at Risk and Witness to War: 7 9; through Sunday...