Icarus Films announced this past week that Tibetan
filmmaker Pema Tseden’s Venice International Film Festival award-winning film
for Best Screenplay, Jinpa, will
be making its domestic DVD debut on Mar. 24.
Of note, this is the third film from Tseden to be
released on DVD from Icarus Films, Old Dog
(Best Picture winner at the Tokyo Future International Film Festival in 2011)
was released in July of 2013, and Tharlo
(nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in
2015) has been available since February of 2017.
Jinpa
opened at the Venice Film Festival in September of 2018 and has marched out to
various festivals around the world during 2018 and 2019, including the Toronto
International Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Ukraine’s Molodist
International Film Festival and more.
Jinpa (whose actual name is Jinpa), the title
character, is a truck driver who travels the lonely roads of Tibet’s Kekexili
Plateau (literally meaning is “Blue Ridge) in the western area of the
country. He is seemingly at one with
the solitude and majesty of the rugged beauty of this remote place
(cinematography is by Lu Songye, who also worked with Tseden on Tharlo as
well as with writer/director Heng Yang’s 2017 film release of Ghost in
the Mountains).
He passes the time listening to his recordings of
classical music, however on this particular trip the solitude is shattered when
he accidently strikes and kills a wayward sheep. Call it a bad omen or just bad luck, Jinpa’s
routine is disrupted by the accident … in more ways then he first
realizes.
Soon he crosses paths with a hitchhiker (played by Genden
Phuntsok — Meido) at
a lonely outpost (the only signs of civilization, if you can call it
that). It is here that Jinda has a few
delightful moments of interaction with the local bar maid (waitress, whatever)
played by Sonam Wangmo (as Sing-Sang in The Royal
Tenenbaums) … it is playful, fun and breaks
up the monotony of the lonely trek.
Both Jinda and Sonam Wangmo are reunited in Tseden’s
Balloon,
which is following the same distribution pattern as Jinpa,
having opened at the Venice Film Festival at the end of August this past year.
The hitchhiker comes from the Khampa region of Tibet
(the eastern end of the country), his name is also Jinpa and he is on a
mission. During their ride to the
crossroads, the hitchhiker says that he is on his way to kill a man … there is
a dagger strapped to his leg. The
crossroad is reached … a fork in the road, dusty, barren, beyond remote and
they go their separate ways.
The film plays out as Jinda, our truck driver,
begins to have second thoughts about having delivered a potential murderer
closer to his goal. After wrestling with
his conscience (and the omen of the dead sheep) he sets out to find the other Jinda
and stop him.
Jinda,
almost surreal at times, is a marvelous story that plays out against the backdrop
of this remote — and strikingly beautiful — area of Tibet. The film is presented in Tibetan with
English subtitles.
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