Martin Scorsese

Daoma Zei is [gloriously] overwhelming because of the grand pageantry of religious iconography. Religion is a major cultural priority and activity in Tibet. Tibetan Buddhism is a religion, but not the same as Siddharta's Buddhism. Perhaps another reason why the ritualism was displayed as an all-consuming spectacle: it was the the director's way of criticizing the extravagant, opulent, materialistic nature of remote forms of Tibetan Buddhism, compared to Siddharta Gautama's Buddhism.

Some explanations about the significance of the rituals.

The first ritual in the film is a celestial burial. It expresses a wish for the deceased's soul so soar towards heaven and be reincarnated. It involves hacking a corpse into pieces and leaving the remains on a specially prepared tianzang ground (charnel ground), exposed to the elements and animals. If carrion/vultures/condors fully consume the remains, the deceased is free of sin, the soul soars to heaven, and is reincarnated.

Opening a film with that a death ritual depicted staggering detail signifies there's more death to come.

Another celestial burial occurs half-way through the film, which foreshadows that one more will occur to complete the film cycle (beginning-middle-end).

Opening the film with multiple shots of spinning prayer wheels (cyclic) and a celestial burial (karma = cyclic) with circling vultures, complete with the celestial burial liturgy (hypnotically repetitious and trance-like chanting: cyclic) decisively foreshadows that the film will end the way it has begun, and it does.

The goats in the film are driven uphill to be sacrificed to heaven, just as Norbu is driven out of the tribe, which foreshadows he will be sacrificed.

The tribal chief has a successful celestial burial (during which, Norbu is visibly shaken and fearful....), whereas Norbu is barred from the tianzang/charnel/burial ground, which also foreshadows that Norbu will not only die, but not have any access to heaven/reincarnation, and that is something he deeply fears after the exile. This fear is externally recreated in the mesmerizing ghost dance (dancing in a circle, dance is to exorcise malevolent ghosts that bring disasters, misfortunes, evils, etc, purge all the bad ghosts and begin the new year with a blank slate, wearing ghost masques enables dancers to evoke ghosts of evil, ghosts of the dead, ghosts of madness, etc, and once evoked, dancers are possessed by ghosts, then dominate ghosts, and finally drive ghosts out; goal is to ensure they don't return), during which he watches with great intensity (his inner fears playing out before his eyes), and also the scene when he's seeing off the river ghost, once again visibly tense when carrying the river ghost statue into the water. His fear of not receiving a celestial burial, his fear of not being able to conquer his own ghosts (resorting to theft to support his family), foreshadows his death.

Midway through the film are clips of one component of the Kalachraka (Wheel of Time: cycle) festival (people walking to Mount Kailash, as they're walking, they prostrate themselves to the ground, bless it, kiss it, then get up and walk a few feet, then prostrate themselves again, a cycle of prostration and prayer). Too much to post about, but, there are four universes of Kalachakra, each universe represents a cycle, and the cycles are formation, stabilization, disintegration, and the state of being empty. The state of being empty would signify enlightenment, liberation, death, rebirth. So once again, a foreshadowing that Norbu is going to die.

The extravagance of Norbu's accoutrements is an antithetical apotheosis that also foreshadows his downfall. His costume and adornments deify him, but he's a thief, he's destined to fall from his deified stature.

Another is the "sunning of the Buddha" circumambulation (cycle!) ceremony, the scene when a gigantic embroidery of the Buddha was draped over a hill/mountain, enabling devotees to bless and be blessed by the Buddha, as they circumambulated the drape. So much exhalation and adoration of the Buddha, the Buddha being given all the blessings and riches of the people, a situation utterly antipodal to Norbu's destitution, which forced him to thievery, resulting in his persecution and exile, another hint that death was ineluctable. Buddha and Norbu, opposite ends.

Yet at the same time, there was a pronounced feeling of distanciation between Norbu and all the ritualism, a lack of identification between Norbu and the beliefs and rituals saturating his existence, despite his fears of not ascending to heaven and achieving reincarnation. Sometimes it seemed he felt the brand of Buddhism being practised was an empty charade that, if anything, increased the poverty and destitution of the people. He was broken by poverty and desperate to support his family, which forced him to cross moral and ethical barriours, and such a decision was a spirit-breaking decision, pushing him outside of his religious-soaked existence, enabling him to look at the ritualism from the outside. Not only are viewers of the film outsiders, but from the very beginning, Norbu is also a bit of an outsider. Many of the film shots of various rituals are from the director's point of view, not Norbu's, and the lack of overt plot/character connection heightens the sense of distanciation between the viewers and the rituals, the rituals and the plot, the worshippers (destitute, impoverished) and Buddha (defied beyond deification, all money and food go to him, his iconographic structures are fit for a king, all time is spent worshipping him), the distance between the ritualism and the original tenets of Buddhism, between modern China and primitive Tibet, between modern man and man's mystical origins, between man and his place in the world, between man's past (religion) and present (need to survive), a distanciation effect signifying an array of disconnect between many things. The ritual scenes looked as detached and impenetrable as the mystery of existence. Since the focus of the film is Norbu's relationship with this impenetrable religion and rituality, the distanciation effect is even more amplified than ever, with viewers feeling a lack of identification with Norbu, especially since Norbu distilled the drama of his life (poverty, exile, death of son, and birth of new son) into this religious and ritualistic system that he had also been distanced and exiled from.

There's two different camera eyes that put this film together, one camera eye offering rituals that paralleled and personified the dramatics of Norbu's inner state of mind, which enabled viewers to identify with him because they understood him during those moments, and another other camera eye that presented a staggering distanciation effect. I don't feel both viewpoints intermingled harmoniously, but I do feel the dissonance between the viewpoints was the perfect metonymy for the dissonance between humanity and religion. The lack of convergence between both viewpoints served to further bring to light the themes the film explores.