Manakamana

The first shot of Manakamana is a ten-minute, continuous shot of a boy and presumably his grandfather riding a cable car. They do not speak; they hardly look at each other. They get off. I thought, okay, this is an interesting if a bit tedious opening to this film. But then, the film continues with a woman, dressed in a colorful sari, getting on the car and taking it back down. I realized--the entire film is going to be in that cable car.

The reptilian part of my brain told me to turn it off--life is to short. But I stuck with it, and gradually began to enjoy it. For one thing, people do start to talk on the car. The first words occur at the 25 minute mark (it's a two-hour film) when a wife says to her husband, "My ears are popping."

We can only piece together information. I knew from the Netflix envelope that it is in Nepal, and these travelers are going to a Hindu temple. It is a shrine to the goddess Manakamana, and pilgrims make wishes when they arrive. The cable car replaces an old trail that people had to walk before. But if I were the goddess, I'd be, wait a minute, making it easier to get here isn't what I had in mind.

Every ten minutes a new group gets on the car (actually, though it is edited to seem like the entire film is in real time, it is stitched together from several rides and is several different cars). I got to the point where I was actually intrigued to see who would be next, and it turned out to be a car full of goats. There was also a trio of young men, Nepalis, with long hair and rock t-shirts, taking selfies. Mostly they were older people, wearing traditional clothing. Two older women enjoy ice cream bars on the way down. A pair of men with instruments play a tune.

The film was directed by Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, who are from the Sensory Ethnology Lab of Harvard University. It is not the kind of movie you go out to on a Friday night at the multiplex. Once attuned to what it is, the mind can adjust, but I wouldn't exactly call it "entertainment."