Film Review: The Buddha a documentary from David Grubin

As a documentary I give it a rating of **** out of *****  (That's four stars out of five.)

Now for how I review films: if it is a movie I think I'll like, I give it five stars to start with, then give and take away stars for things I like and dislike.

If it is a movie I think I'll hate, I give it zero stars and it has to earn its way up from there (or it will go into the negative stars.)

If it is a movie I have neutral feelings on, it also gets zero stars.

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This is a serious review.  If you want to read something funny, comment and I'll publish my review on Unicorn City.

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Netflix's description of the film was a great summary:

This compelling Emmy-nominated documentary from David Grubin explores the life of the Buddha, his quest for serenity and his eventual enlightenment.

THIS FILM IS NOT RATED.

(Hahaha, I was so excited to say that.)

This film is, in my opinion, perfectly fine for a person of any age to watch.  There are some shots of ancient murals depicting women showing some boobage, and a slightly scary statue of Buddha all anorexic, but all together, I think it is equally clean, and much less terrifying than Fantasia.

(But Fantasia is TERRIFYING, so maybe that's not a good standard to judge by.)

It's well put together, interesting, informative and has some beautiful shots of India and the Hindu and Buddhist temples.

The music is great, it has a very Asian feel, with urdu and sitar, you do get to hear some of the traditional Hindu and Buddhist chants, which is really cool and reminds me a bit of the Gregorian chants (you know, the Cathedral guys all saying the same thing at the same time with eerie shots of stained-glass windows.)

The documentary interviews a pretty stellar group of people, including: his holiness the Dalai Lama, actor Richard Gere, and some other radical people, including famous poets, and stuff like that.

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It was very artistically done.  There was lots of cartoony art, which most people may like.  However, I thought there were altogether too many cartoons.

Although some of the drawings and cartoons were contributive (one could argue necessary,) to explaining things, I thought it was a little bit of overkill.

I disliked that Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha did not return to his family with his newfound illumination.  But that is not the fault of the documentary maker, so it did not effect the score.

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What this film means to me:

I've been in a bit of a funk for the last month, and it pulled me out of it.  The message of Buddha is to be happy no matter where you are, which was what I needed to hear.

THE END