Kundun

(Touchstone)

Although Martin Scorsese's film recounts in great detail the Dalai Lama's life from 1937 (when monks determined that the two-year-old boy was the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama) to 1959 (when he left Tibet, fleeing the Chinese Communists, for an exile that continues to this day), Kundun is strangely devoid of plot, narrative drive, or even characters. It's as beautiful, evanescent, and insubstantial as a dream.