Year:  2018

Director:  Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam

Rated:  NA

Release:  August 8 – 17, 2019

Running time: 91 minutes

Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

Cast:
Tenzin Dolker, Shavo Dorjee, Jampa Kalsang Tamang

Intro:
…rich in its storytelling and its subtle approach to bringing attention to a struggle that is lacking in awareness by the general public.

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam’s The Sweet Requiem is the story of the untold struggles of Tibetan refugees. The film focuses on Dolkar (Tenzin Dolker), who made the grueling trip from Tibet to India at the age of eight. She is now twenty-six and living in New Delhi, India.

The film alternates between Dolkars’s present life and the past in the form of flashbacks that she had repressed for years. Dolkar’s friend Dorjee (Shavo Dorjee) assists the Tibetan community in Delhi and works alongside a man whose real name is Gompo (Jampa Kalsang Tamang), who they believe is a Tibetan activist.

When Dolkar sees Gompo, she immediately recognises him as the man who guided her group through the mountains and into the pass that leads into India; a difficult trek where losses were incurred. Dolkar struggles to forgive Gompo for the pain that his actions put her through. We also see her struggles with reaching her family back home, when she learns her sister has gotten married and has a two month old daughter.

The Sweet Requiem shines in its focus on Dolkar, a refugee that has made the most of her new life and who has tried to bury her past for the last eighteen years. Themes such as loneliness, alienation, and repression are explored throughout the visually impressive film. The mountain-set aspect of the film gives the viewer a wonderous sense of the journey, expertly contrasted with scenes of the crowded and busy streets of Delhi.

The intriguing The Sweet Requiem has its slower parts, but it is rich in its storytelling and its subtle approach to bringing attention to a struggle that is lacking in awareness by the general public. The film doesn’t come off as a cry for help, but rather, a true visual representation about something that is very real but unfortunately overlooked.

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