BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Buddhism Movies with Buddhist Themes - More Ideas?

A reader sent me an email suggesting a British movie called The Warrior by Asif Kapadia, based on a zen story. I have not seen it yet but thought I would pass the suggestion on here...

I think it would be fun if you looked at movies like pride and prejudice from a buddhist point of view

Lisa, yes, I hadn't thought of that, Pride and Prejudice would be a good one. Really, almost any movie could be I guess, particularly any human drama, since the Buddha was so insightful about the human condition...

I wanted to add Hereafter to this list, after seeing it this weekend. It got terrible reviews, and I think they are really unjust. I think it's because it's a difficult subject matter - death - and it doesn't offer explicit, feel-good answers. It's also paced very slowly, often the case for Clint Eastwood movies, but that makes them less appealing to some people.

It centers on 3 characters: Matt Damon plays a reluctant psychic who can communicate with the dead but suffers because of it, and then there are two other story lines - a woman jouranlist who has a near-death experience in the Indonesia tsunami, and a young boy who loses his twin brother in a tragic accident. The three characters are pulled together in the end. There's a lot of suffering in the story, and that may be another reason some people have not reacted well to it. And although it centers around the idea that there is something else beyond death, it doesn't say what that is, or present it within a particular belief system or religion.

Personally, I thought it was really brilliant, and absolutely beautiful. And Buddhist in many ways, because it offers an honest look at human suffering, and is inquiring, but does not settle on a fixed answer or belief system.

Why is the Unbearable Lightness of Being considered a Buddhist theme movie?

I don't know as I would consider the Unbearable Lightness of Being Buddhist myself (and I haven't seen the movie, just read the book, and I remember that Kundera did not like the movie, so there may be a big difference between the two.) But perhaps some people consider it Buddhist because philosophically it is very focused on the essence of life being in the moment...however, as I remember it, Kundera is very existential - there isn't much meaning offered beyond the moment, so everything is kind of pointless...in Buddhism there is liberation and joy in the moment, in being free from our usual conceptual living, rather than hopelessness...

I added some movies to this post for an updated version - HereAfter with Matt Damon, and the Adjustment Bureau, also starring him. I thought about adding Limitless, since it also explores the nature of consciousness, but didn't think it quite fit. Has anyone seen these movies? What do you think?

The film "The Silent Flute" combines quite a few Taoist and Buddhist teachings.

I hadn't heard of this one before, but looked it up and it sounds great.

I'd highly recommend it. It's one of those multi-level films you can watch every so often and see new nuances.