The Knowledge of Healing

Amid recent florid attempts by Hollywood to document the decline of Tibetan culture, this sobering, enchanting documentary echoes with the quiet clarity of prayer bells. The Knowledge of Healing is also the title of an 11th-century book of medicine, as we're told by the film's primary narrator, Dr. Tenzin Choedrak, personal physician to the Dalai Lama.

The film documents the painstaking preparation of medicines, from forest herbs to the alchemical "jewel pills," that have helped treat countless Chernobyl victims. Case studies show how these ancient cures work where modern ones have failed, even against paralysis and kidney failure. Testimonials from European biochemists underline the Dalai Lama's assertion that the subtle, holistic methods of Tibetan healing counterpoint the invasive but dramatic methods of Western medicine.

The film is not overtly political, yet even the gentle tenets of Buddhist spirituality cannot hide the specter of Chinese tyranny. At one point, a Buddhist nun calmly describes her brutal rape and torture by prison guards. Dr. Choedrak, who himself spent 20 years in a Chinese labor camp, wipes away tears, explaining that she suffered not just personally but for all of Tibet, and that "the truth will come out in the end." At the Coolidge Corner.

-- Peg Aloi