ABSTRACT
Windhorse (Paul Wagner, USA, 1998) focuses on three members of a Tibetan family whose lives are changed in different ways by the Chinese occupation of their country. They are a man named Dorjee (Jampa Kelsang), his sister Dolkar (Dadon), and their cousin Pema (not credited in the film). The film opens with the three as children happily jumping rope and singing a children’s folksong of innocence, as Tibet is portrayed before Chinese invasion. But this lifestyle will soon be changed as we see Chinese soldiers approaching and entering their house. There is the sound of a gun firing, and we later learn Dorjee and Dolkar’s grandfather has been killed for hanging up a poster advocating a free Tibet. The next scene takes place years later. In this scene, the head nun at a nunnery is forced by Chinese soldiers to read a statement to the women there. The statement condemns the Dalai Lama, then living in exile in India, for allegedly being a counter-revolutionary. The statement further instructs the nuns to remove all photographs and other images of the Dalai Lama, and to never mention or even think of him again. As the head nun reads this proclamation, her students wipe tears streaming down their faces. Later we realize that Pema, now grown up, has become a nun and is among those crying.
