Paths Of The Soul

If you've ever felt lost and been mysteriously relieved by a friendly voice saying, "This way," whatever your faith or spirituality, this patient, majestic movie is for you.

The film is restful and exhausting, inviting us into contemplation: of Tibet's epic-scale natural beauty, which has rarely been filmed with such you-are-there patience and intimacy, each new horizon these pilgrims reach a reward for their perseverance ...

There's never been a road movie quite like Paths of the Soul, an extraordinary chronicle of ordinary Tibetan citizens undertaking a 1,200-mile pilgrimage to Lhasa.

Blurring the confines between documentary and fiction, it takes the empathetic viewer on an incredible journey that can be almost as painful to follow vicariously from a theater seat as it must have been on the pilgrims.

The views of Tibet are spectacular; you get the impression of traveling through an ancient world.

No less extraordinary than the action depicted in director Zhang Yang's festival hit is the fact that it's so watchable.

Sights of stones tumbling down a mountain, or of pilgrims dancing by a river, look spontaneous and extraordinary. Long takes and widescreen vistas poetically show a minute human presence traversing a vast natural landscape.

Paths of the Soul is less interested in individual drama than in offering a portrait of constant communal work in the service of personal spiritual fulfillment.

This is slow cinema at its finest.

As [the pilgrims] stoically endure harsh winter weather, physical exhaustion and the many hazards on the road, the film develops into a stirring salute to their deep-rooted spiritual devotion and quiet determination.

Zhang Yang achieves an astonishing immediacy by simply allowing the prostration process to play out over and over with minimal aesthetic interference.