Tibet in Song (2008)
A Fight to Preserve Tibetan Music
By NEIL GENZLINGER
Published: September 23, 2010
Ngawang Choephel, a Tibetan musicologist who was imprisoned by the Chinese for more than six years, would have had a compelling film had he simply stuck to his own remarkable story. But his documentary, “Tibet in Song,” is doubly powerful because he also weaves in the overall history of Tibet’s struggle, a primer on the Chinese government’s campaign to muzzle Tibetan culture and vignettes from other Tibetans who resisted.
More About This Movie
David Huang/Guge Productions
Lhamo, a character of “Tibet in Song,” discusses a costume.
David Huang/Guge Productions
Lhamo, a character of “Tibet in Song,” discusses a costume.
Ngawang Choephel, a Tibetan musicologist who was imprisoned by the Chinese for more than six years, would have had a compelling film had he simply stuck to his own remarkable story. But his documentary, “Tibet in Song,” is doubly powerful because he also weaves in the overall history of Tibet’s struggle, a primer on the Chinese government’s campaign to muzzle Tibetan culture and vignettes from other Tibetans who resisted.
Mr. Choephel left Tibet with his mother in the years after the Chinese invasion of 1950, growing up in India, where other refugees implanted in him a love of traditional Tibetan songs. He returned to Tibet in the 1990s to try to capture this musical history on tape, but the Chinese had a head start of several decades.
“The first music I heard was Chinese Communist propaganda and Chinese pop songs,” he recalls of his arrival in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital. “It was an unexpected, alien sound and seemed to be following me wherever I went.”
He had better luck finding traditional singers in the countryside, but he was only partway into his recording efforts when he was arrested and jailed as a spy in 1995. One of the more touching aspects of this film is his account of his mother’s tireless campaign to have him freed, which finally paid off in 2002. Persistence, it seems, runs in the family.
TIBET IN SONG
Opens on Friday in Manhattan.
Written, produced, directed and narrated by Ngawang Choephel; director of photography, Hugh Walsh; edited by Tim Bartlett and Laura J. Corwin; music by Mr. Choephel; released by Guge Productions. At the Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Greenwich Village. In English and Tibetan, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. This film is not rated.
A version of this review appeared in print on September 24, 2010, on page C8 of the New York edition.
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