Media Database Search
advanced search | only AEMS collection >


Review 1 of 2:
  next review >
Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy
Item Name:Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy
Reviewer Name:Grunfeld, A. Tom
Reviewer Affiliation:SUNY/Empire State College
Review Source:Association for Asian Studies
Review Source URL:http://www.aasianst.org
Review Citation:Grunfeld, A. Tom. (1997). "Video Review of Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy." Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.56: 579-580.



REVIEW

In recent years, as Tibetans have witnessed and participated in numerous displays of protest against Chinese rule in Tibet, no participants have been more prominent and visible than the Tibetan Buddhist clergy. In response to these demonstrations the Chinese government has imposed ever escalating restrictions on religious activities and has arrested, imprisoned, and sometimes tortured hundreds, if not thousands, of its clerical critics. So manifest are the monks and nuns as dissidents that the Chinese press now routinely calls for the "re-education" of the Tibetan clergy.

Using a script based solely on the testimonies of dissident Tibetan nuns (through a narrator and face-to-face interviews), Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy describes the tragic experiences of these religious women as they movingly recount their heartrending tales of harassment, arrest, torture, and in one case, rape--in a manner so calm and restrained that their stories take on a drama and a weight far greater than if they were being read.

The personal testimonies are accompanied by grainy, blurry, and at times unfocused footage, giving the impression that the filming was clandestine. No information is provided as to where the filming took place although viewers are led to assume, through context, that they are seeing average dwellings, nunneries, prisons, and prison cells in Tibet. The film also includes black-and-white footage of Chinese police forcibly tying up, guarding, and carrying away Tibetan nuns after a protest. While this footage is also uncredited, it comes from the infamous Chinese Public Security Bureau tapes, taken during the height of the disturbances in 1988-89, which were secretly leaked to Western journalists and are now used frequently in films and newscasts related to Tibet.

Despite all that the Chinese have inflicted on these courageous nuns, they are nevertheless willing to forgive, as the subtitle of the film implies. Buddhism teaches them compassion. "The teachings of Buddha ate as deep as the ocean," says one nun. "As anger and hatred arise, I pray that the minds of the Chinese become gentle and calm. That through love and compassion those who are drunk with delusions, lost in the darkness of ignorance, acquire the wisdom eye to see what is right and what is wrong. May all living beings be free from suffering."

The film is explicitly conceived to stir the deepest emotional feelings against the Chinese, and to that end it is uncommonly successful. There are no nuances, explanations, or attempts at historical perspective; it is intended to be polemical. There is only good and evil, pure and simple. And, if the subject is solely what has happened to these nuns, there is little else to say.

However, beyond the sharp jab to the viewer's passions the film is unsettling in that it leaves a considerable number of unanswered questions. Who are these nuns? What percentage of Tibetan nuns are politically active? What percentage of Tibetan nuns have been subject to this brutality? Are these experiences typical or atypical?

Several nuns are shown in face-to-face interviews, as is a demonstration by nuns which includes close-ups of the faces of some protesters. If this film was shot in Tibet, are these nuns not risking additional arrest and possibly torture, and has the filmmaker jeopardized them? If, on the other hand, this film was shot outside of Tibet, was the demonstration real (in India, for example) or staged for Ms. Bruno's cameras? And what of the shots of what the viewer is led to believe are prisons and prison cells; are they what they appear to be? If the film includes unacknowledged staged events and or footage intended to mislead the audience, would this not raise doubts about the credibility of the filmmaker? Or, if purposeful deceptions, are they acceptable in a film that is designed solely to get viewers angry enough to hate the Chinese?

The film also suffers from a number of historical inaccuracies which the nuns undoubtedly believe, but which the filmmaker leaves uncorrected. To cite just three examples: the film begins by stating that China "invaded Tibet in 1949." The People's Liberation Army first encountered a Tibetan official and the Tibetan army in October 1950. At another point, the narrator quotes a nun as saying that there are "more Chinese than Tibetans here." Where is here? Lhasa? Certainly in most of the Tibet Autonomous Region Tibetans are the vast majority of the populace, although perhaps not in Lhasa. The clear, and false, implication is that the Tibetans are a minority everywhere. On another occasion, the narrator says "monks and nuns were forced to marry." This may have indeed occurred briefly during the early years of the Cultural Revolution, although the implication in the film is that this is a common, longtime, and current practice.

The stories that the nuns recount are undoubtedly true and substantially damning of some of Beijing's policies in Tibet. As an emotional polemic, Satya: A Prayerfor the Enemy succeeds admirably. But if one is searching for some understanding of the situation in Tibet, one would have to look elsewhere.



Search Our SiteSite MapEmail Us

footer_logo.gif



[ Overview | Events | AEMS Database | Publications | Local Media Library | MPG | Other Resources ]