VIVISECTfest 03: Film

Christian Frei

The Giant Buddhas

Directed by:	Christian Frei
With:	Nelofer Pazira, Writer and Journalist Xuanzang, Master 602 - 664 AD Sayyed Mirza Hussain, Cave Dweller in Bamiyan Taysir Alony, TV-journalist "Al Jazeera" Zémaryalaï Tarzi, Archaeologist
Producer country:	Switzerland
Production year:	2005
Duration:	95 min
Written, Directed and Edited by:	Christian Frei
Cinematography:	Peter Indergand scs
Assistant Editor:	Denise Zabalaga
Sound Design and Mix:	Florian Eidenbenz
Visual Effects:	Patrick Lindenmaier, Paul Avondet
Narrators:	Stefan Kurt, German Peter Mettler, English
Initiated by:	Bernard Weber, po ideji Petera Spoerria
Advisors:	Paul Bucherer Swiss Afghanistan Institute Armin Grun ETH Zurich Christian Manhart UNESCO Paris
Music:	Philip Glass Jan Garbarek Steve Kuhn Arvo Part
Music Advisor:	Manfred Eicher

Film plot

In march 2001, two huge Buddha statues were blown up in the remote area of Bamiyantal in Afghanistan. Tis dramatic event surrounding the ancient stone colossi - unique proof of a high culture that bloomed until the 13th century along the Silk Road - is the starting point for a cinematic essay on fanaticism and faith, terror and tolerance, ignorance and identity. Oscar nominated director Christian Frei's thought-provoking film journeys along a perimeter that both divides and unites people and cultures.

How did it look and sound here fifteen hundred years ago? How did it smell? Conjuring the past, sifting the present, Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei is seeking the elusive, the poetic, the profound. We are in Bamiyan, the great valley in Afghanistan, site of what were once - not long ago - two giant Buddha statues. At fifty-three metres high, one of them was the tallest-standing representation of Buddha in the world.

But that was another world. In February of 2001, the Taliban issued an edict that all non-Islamic statues be destroyed. By March, the Buddhas were blown to bits. There was international outrage and this hypocrisy is one of the subjects of Frei's beautifully meandering inquiry. He quotes the Iranian filmmaker, Mohsen Makhmalbaf: "I am now convinced that the Buddhist statues were not demolished. They crumbled to pieces out of shame, because of the West's ignorance toward Afghanistan."

On another path, in another period, Frei follows the footsteps of Xuanzang, the seventh-century Chinese monk famed for his sixteen-year spiritual quest along the Silk Road to India. Bamiyan was one of his pit stops.

Bamiyan - The valley of the giant Buddhass

For fifteen hundred years, two gigantic Budda statues stood in their niches cut in the cliff flanking the remote Bamiyan valley of present day Afghanistan. The smaller of the two statues, thirty-five metres high and referred to as "Shamama" (Queen Mother), was hewn into the soft conglomerate of the two kilometre long rock face in the year 507. Painted blue and with a golden face, the figure was supposed to represent the Buddha Sakyamuni. The second statue - the "Salsal" Buddha ("light shines through the universe") - was built fifty years later. At fifty-five metres, this was the greatest standing Buddha statue in the world.

The present dwellers in this valley are proud of their pre-Islamic past. They talk of the old times when Bamiyan, the main link between central Asia and India, provided the main access to the Silk Road and was the trading centre for thousands of caravans. It was this prosperity that was responsible for the Buddha statues being hewn into the soft rock face with a complex system of steps, niches, balconies, meeting rooms, altar rooms with cupolas and dwelling quarters, all cut into the rock and nestling between the two colossal figures.

For hundreds of years the Bamiyan valley, lying in the Hindukutch, was one of the most important and attractive pilgrimage sites for practising Buddhists, a true global centre of Buddhism, a melting pot of cultures.

However, in the spring of 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Omar in a fatwa, gave the order to destroy the two Buddha statues. The world was up in arms.

Years of looting of Afghanistan's cultural heritage and the religious mania of "God's warriors" and its devastating consequences on the people of Afghanistan provoked little interest yet, all of a sudden, UNESCO hastily sent a special envoy to Kabul and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York offered to purchase and preserve the statues. But to no avail.

At the beginning of March 2001, the great Buddhas of Bamiyan were blown up by specialists belonging to the al-Qaeda terror organisation.

Christian Frei was born in 1959, in Schönenwerd, Switzerland. He studied Visual Media at the Department of Journalism and Communication at Fribourg University. He shot his first documentary in 1981, and has been working as an independent filmmaker and producer since 1984. He works regularly for Swiss National Television SF DRS. In 1997, he shot his first feature length documentary, Ricardo, Miriam y Fidel, the tale of a Cuban family torn between loyalty to the revolutionary ideals and the desire to emigrate to the United States. In 2001, his War Photographer followed photojournalist James Nachtwey during his various missions. The film received an Academy Award Nomination for "Best Documentary Feature" and won twelve International Filmfestivals. The Giant Buddhas deals with the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha sculptures.

Filmography

1981: Die Stellvertreterin (Documentary)
1982: Fortfahren (co-director), (Documentary)
1984: Der Radwechsel (Documentary)