Pema Tseden's The Search: the making of a minor cinema

ABSTRACT

This paper uses Deleuze and Guattari's concept of ‘minor’ to examine Pema Tseden's second full-length feature film, The Search. Expanding on Deleuze's definition of minor cinema, this paper shows how The Search, through various strategies and narrative devices, deconstructs the myth of a pre-existing Tibetan people, and builds upon individual and fragmented narratives to create a new collective subjectivity, thus opening the way for a new understanding of Tibet. This case study demonstrates how Pema Tseden's in-between position (between languages, cultures and geographical areas) permits him to develop a cinema that gives space for Tibetans to become, giving the viewer a rare insight into contemporary Tibet.

KEYWORDS:

• minor cinema
• Pema Tseden
• The Search
• Drime Kunden
• Tibetanness

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to everyone who provided feedback at the Victoria University of Wellington and the Hong Kong Baptist University, and from France and Japan, especially: Robert Barnett, Sylvie Beaud, Thomas Boutonnet, Brigitte Duzan, Stephen Epstein, Liang Hongling, Kwai-Cheung Lo, Luo Hui, Michael Radich, Wang Yiyan, Jessica Yeung. A word of special thanks goes to Pema Tseden, who patiently answered my questions during our interviews in Beijing and Hong Kong.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In this paper, Tibet refers to all the Tibetan areas in China, including the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR, corresponding to the traditional region of U-Tsang) and Tibetan prefectures distributed in the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan and part of the traditional Amdo and Kham regions. Tibetan cinema thus includes films made by Tibetans from any of these Tibetan areas.

2. Selected short stories of Pema Tseden have been translated from Chinese and Tibetan into French in Tseden (2013). Neige, Paris: Philippe Piquier. In Chinese, he published a few novels and short stories, including Dashi zai Xizang (Lanzhou University Press, 2006), Liulang ge de meng (Tibet People's Press, 2011) and Manishi, jingjing de qiao (China's Ethnic Photographic Art Press, 2014). Pema Tseden also translated into Chinese Tibetan writer Takbum Gyalshort's story collection ‘The Song of Life’, which received the 2011 Minority Literary Award in Beijing: Debenjia, Rensheng geyao, Qinghai's People Press, 2012. He also translated selected Tibetan popular tales into Chinese: Xizang: Shuo bu wan de gushi, Qinghai People's Press, 2014. All his publications in Chinese, as well as his first cinematographic works, are signed under his Chinese name, Wanma Caidan.

3. His documentary work includes: The Weatherman's Legacy (aka The Last Tibetan Shaman, 2004), The Gyuto Monlam (2007), Snow on the Bayan Har Mountain, Samye and The Guanyin Hole in the Wutai Mountain (all in 2008).

4. The Silent Holy Stones won the Grand Jury Prize at Changchun Film Festival, the Best Director award at Shanghai International Film Festival, the Best Directorial Debut award at the Beijing Student Film Festival and the Golden rooster award for Best Directorial Debut. The film was also selected by several international film festivals: Pusan International Film Festival; Hong Kong International Film Festival; International Film Festival Rotterdam; San Francisco International Film Festival; International Buddhist Film Festival.

5. The Search won the Grand Jury Prize in Shanghai and the Special Jury Prize in Bangkok. Old Dog received the Golden DV award in Hong Kong. Both films were signed under his Tibetan name. Besides, Pema Tseden, made Flares Wafting in 1983 (Lapa ku piaodang zai 1983, 2008) under his Chinese name Wanma Caidan. The film is based on a novel by Wang Shiyue 王十月. It follows a young man who attempts to go to college and meets various obstacles in his village. The film hasn't been received any particular attention, possibly because it doesn't focus on Tibet and is shot in Mandarin with a Chinese cast. It was shown during the 2014 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival in a retrospective of Pema Tseden's films.

6. Tharlo is based on a short-story of the same name, written in Chinese and translated into French by Brigitte Duzan in Neige. The film received the Golden Horse Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Asia Pacific Screen Award (Cinematography) in 2015; it was also awarded the Golden Wheel and the INALCO Jury Award in 2016.

7. See, for instance, Pema Tseden's article “A Brief Introduction to New Student Short Films in the Tibetan Language”, Latse Journal, vol. 7, 2011–2012, 58–62.

8. In his work on Tibetan films made in exile, Klieger points to a conscious and selective presentation of self, mainly towards Western audiences, that he calls a ‘Tibetan hyperreality’. Such romanticised self-presentation has precluded any challenge to this conventional image of Tibet.

9. Among the most prominent Mongolian filmmakers in China, who emerged in the late 1980s, are Mailisi and Saifu (1953-2005). They are well known for The Proud Son of Heaven: Genghis Khan (Yidaitianjiao Cheng jisihan, 1997) and Heavenly Grasslands (Tianshang caoyuan, 2002). Mailisi is now working on a 3D IMAX epic on Genghis Khan to be released in 2015. More recently, another Mongolian director Wuershan made a 3D blockbuster: Painted Skin: The Resurrection (Huabi II, 2012), a sequel of Painted Skin Huabi, 2008) by Hong Kong director Gordon Chan Ka-Seung. Other prominent Mongolian directors are: Ning Cai (My Mongolian Mother, E ji, 2010), Hasichaolu (Zhula's story, Zhula de gushi, 2000; Thangka, Tangka, 2012), and Zhuo Gehe (Nima's woman, Nima jia de nuren, 2008; Degiide, Dejide, 2014).

10. Today's Amdo is included in Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces.

11. Robin lists five films made between 2004 and 2008, including three by Pema Tseden (Grassland, The Silent Holy Stones and The Search), in which the supreme virtue of compassion is at the centre of the plots. Robin notes that this phenomenon is a consequence of this revitalisation of Buddhist values.

12. Literally, dri means ‘defilement’, me(d) means ‘none’ and kun ldan ‘fully, utterly’: so drime kunden is ‘completely pure’. I would like to thank Dr Michael Radich for his translation and for referring me to Ghosh's article.

13. For a translation and interpretation of Vessantara, see Margaret Cone and Richard Gombrich (1977, 2011), The Perfect Generosity of Prince Vessentara: A Buddhist Epic, Bristol: The Pali Text Society. An early translation is also available in E. B. Cowell and W. H. D. Rouse, 1895. The Jātaka, or, Stories of the Buddha's Former Births. London: The Pali Text Society. In Tibet, versions of the tale vary regionally and through time. For a translation (into French) of the lhamo play Drime Kunden, see Jacques Bacot (1914), ‘Drimekunden, une version tibétaine du Vessantara Jataka’, Journal asiatique, XI (4): 221–305. An English translation is also available: Denison Ross (1912). The Story of Ti-Med-Kun-Den: A Tibetan Nam-Thar, Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press. In Chinese, see Tsering Thar (Ch. Cairangtai) (1988). ‘“Zhimei gengdeng” chutan’, Tibetan studies 3.

14. The tale evolved from a storytelling practice supported by picture scrolls to written texts in the fourteenth century. See Wang (1986) and Blondeau (2001). During the seventeenth century, Drime Kunden was turned into a drama (lhamo) that combines narrative in prose or verse and chanted dialogues accompanied by dance, percussions, masks and colourful costumes. The Tibetan drama record usually includes eight plays: Princess Wencheng, Maiden Nagndsa, Prince Drime Kunden, Maiden Drowa Sangmo, Maiden Subkyi Nyima, Brothers Donyo and Dondrup, Padma Obar, and Prince Norsang. For more on Tibetan opera, see Isabelle Henrion-Doucy (2004). Ache Lhamo: Playing in/on the Tibetan Theatrical Tradition, PhD diss., Université libre de Bruxelles/ Paris EPHE.

15. Techung's songs are featured in Dreaming Lhasa (2005) by Tenzing Sonam and Ritu Sarin; Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion (2002) by E. Edwards; Windhorse (1998) by Paul Wagner, Ce qu'il reste de nous (2004) by Hugo Latulippe; and many others.

16. The words are: ‘Akhu Pema ye/ on your return, the youths rejoice/ without you my heart is empty’. The song is in Amdo dialect and as a consequence is not understood by all Tibetans, which complicates the idea of a hidden ‘message’ in the song addressed to ‘all’ Tibetans in the world. Palgon is also well-known outside Tibet: Uncle Pema won the Best Lyrics award at the 2003 Tibetan Music Awards (based in Dharamsala, India), the same year as Techung's most famous song, Losar.

17. As pointed out by Kwai-Cheung Lo (2013),

The Silent Holy Stones reportedly was manipulated by Beijing to serve as a rebuttal to Tenzing Sonam and Ritu Sarin's Dreaming Lhasa. The two films opened in New York on the same day: Dreaming Lhasa at ImaginAsian Theatre, and The Silent Holy Stones at the Lincoln Center. Chinese authorities reportedly permitted film festivals to screen The Silent Holy Stones on condition that no Tibetan films produced outside China were screened with it. (180)

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Vanessa Frangville

Vanessa Frangville is a senior lecturer and chairholder in Chinese studies at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium. She is the author of articles on Chinese ethnic minority cinema and Chinese representations of Tibet in cinema, and is currently working on a monograph on the history of ethnic minorities films in China.