Published by: World Tibet Network News Saturday, January 17, 1998

January 16, 1998

By TED ANTHONY Of The Associated Press

In a career of triumphs big and small, ''Kundun'' might well be Martin Scorsese's masterpiece.

Even before its release, the story of the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, the Buddhist god-king chosen in childhood as the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama, has caused global repercussions. China has denounced it. Tibet independence activists have welcomed it.

But beyond the real-world posturing lies a marvelously filmed, visually extravagant and subtle story that, true or false, is a thing of beauty.

The Lama, known as ''Kundun,'' is plucked from his small village in 1937. A 2-year-old boy named Tenzin Gyatso, he has identified as ''mine'' items belonging to the previous Dalai Lama. Even then, his advisers knew the risks. ''He dared to be reborn right on the Chinese border,'' says one.

He is taken to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and raised as a god-king, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. There he learns to be a leader, surrounded by advisers who are nurturing but not cliche. He watches newsreels of World War II and the atom bomb and writes innocent, naive greetings to President Truman.

But after the war, the new Chinese communist government, which views Tibet as its own, annexes it in 1950, forcing the Dalai Lama to flee the capital temporarily. People's Liberation Army trucks roll into Lhasa, playing patriotic songs. ''They have taken away our silence,'' Kundun laments.

Ultimately he travels to Beijing (in a wonderful little scene during which Kundun discovers power windows) and meets with Mao Tse-tung, who welcomes him. Robert Lin's Mao is a terrifying exercise in benign malevolence, his syrupy-sweet welcomes masking a calculated ruthlessness that comes through in his cold eyes. ''Religion is poison,'' he tells Kundun. ''Your people are poisoned and inferior.''

Though ''Kundun'' is grounded in reality, its techniques are quite stylized. Scorsese goes over the top visually, offering up dizzying varieties of color, texture and craggy Tibetan faces in scenes so vivid you can almost smell them. Blood flows in Kundun's aquarium when it is shed outside; when his father dies, the traditional cutting up of the body for the vultures is set to narration of the terms that the Chinese government is dictating to Tibet.

And, after the meeting with Mao, when Kundun dreams of the monks killed by the Chinese army, he is suddenly standing among them in a sea of blood-red robes. It is an amazing, harrowing scene, and Scorsese pans out to drown Kundun in an acres-square ocean of dead monks.

Roger Deakins' cinematography only enhances this. Barred from shooting in Tibet, he turned Morocco, Idaho and British Columbia into pieces of the Tibetan highlands. Without his eye, the film would have been far different.

The actors who portray Kundun have, unbelievably, the same strength of presence. Two-year-old Tenzin Yeshi Paichang is appropriately self-centered for his age; 5-year-old Tulku Jamyang Kunga Tenzin and 23-year-old Gyurme Tethong capture perfectly the slow maturing of the god-king; and Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong, the young adult Kundun, conveys the moral and spiritual anguish the Tibetan people face when the Chinese consume their everyday existence.

All the supporting performances, from right-hand man Reting Rinpoches (Sonam Phuntsok) to wise adviser Norbu Thundrup (Jamyang Tenzin), are dead-on subtle. None of the stars is a professional actor; all are Tibetans living in exile.

In the end, despite exhortations from his people, Kundun decides he must leave. He is spirited from Lhasa, sailing toward India and exile on a cold, starlit night with mountains as backdrop. He looks over his shoulder and sees his capital in the distance; it is clear he will not return, and he has not to this day.

''Kundun'' is astounding in many ways (including, by the way, its enlisting of both a yak wrangler and a vulture wrangler). Certainly, especially given the Dalai Lama's involvement in scripting, healthy skepticism is required to evaluate whether the story really happened the way Scorsese tells it. And yes, occasionally it turns into a tract, though it is never heavy-handed.

But, unlike an Oliver Stone movie, this film's truth of facts is ultimately irrelevant and secondary to its beauty. What matters about ''Kundun'' is its truth of humanity, its account of a man struggling to control his circumstances and protect his people -- and, most of all, its proof that the world still contains epic and personal tales.

''Kundun,'' a Touchstone Pictures production, is produced by Barbara De Fina from a script by Melissa Mathison with consultation from the Dalai Lama. It is edited by Thelma Schoonmaker.