I have always been very interested in the life of the Buddha, so I was looking forward to this movie. It was quite a disappointment. The movie was made in 1972, modelling the fortune cookie, stilted dialogue from Charleton Heston in The Ten Commandments, Richard Burton in The Robe, and presaging Alec Guiness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. The beauty of the movie is the misty panoramas of the quiet river. It such a beautiful peaceful world prior to the invention of machines. The crude makeup to show Siddhartha ageing reminded me of many a Monty Python sketch. There are some embarrassing long sex scenes. I left the room. They just felt cheap and tacked on porn, only marginally to do with the flow of the movie. The movie might have worked better with the sound off and subtitles to disguise just how stilted, turgid, corny and idiotic the dialogue is. "Everything returns" is passed off as transcendental wisdom.
Review of Siddhartha
