Forest of Bliss

A film without voiceover commentary, involves the viewer in an intense encounter with daily life in Benares, India's most holy city, from one sunrise to the next. It looks at specifics, and but also opens itself to larger concerns such as the eternal cycles and metamorphoses of water, earth, flesh wood and fire, wind and the spirit.

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"Examines the daily customs and religious rituals that take place on the ghats of the river Ganges. The film unfolds during the course of a single day, taking the viewer on a journey through the industry that revolves around the dead and the dying. Images of the ghats where the dead are cremated and the death houses where the poor spend their final days are contrasted with sequences documenting the traffic and hectic streets of modern Benares. Forest of Bliss is a unique documentary film in many ways, the most obivous being that the original Hindi is not translated or subtitled, forcing the viewer to experience the holy city of Benares much as any first time visitor would, directly, and without commentary."
"A documentary on the Holy City of Benares, India. The daily customs and religious rituals. A portrayal of daily customs and religious rituals without running commentary, interviews or subtitles."
"This experiential film presents, without commentary or subtitles, the stark realities of Benares, a sacred Indian city devoted to the dead. The film unfolds from one sunrise to the next and follows in images of beauty, mystery and savagery the seemingly endless rounds of ritual. Connecting these scenes are three men: a genial healer who tends the sick and dying, a conscientious priest who performs sacred rites and the gloomy king of the cremation grounds."
"A film without voiceover commentary, involves the viewer in an intense encounter with daily life in Benares, India's most holy city, from one sunrise to the next. It looks at specifics, and but also opens itself to larger concerns such as the eternal cycles and metamorphoses of water, earth, flesh wood and fire, wind and the spirit."
"A film without voiceover commentary, involves the viewer in an intense encounter with daily life in Benares, India's most holy city, from one sunrise to the next. It looks at specifics, and but also opens itself to larger concerns such as the eternal cycles and metamorphoses of water, earth, flesh wood and fire, wind and the spirit."@en
"A documentary on the Holy City of Benares, India. The daily customs and religious rituals."
"Forest of Bliss is an unsparing yet redemptive account of the inevitable griefs, religious passions and frequent happinesses that punctuate daily life in Benares, India's most holy city. The film unfolds from one sunrise to the next without commentary, subtitles or dialogue."@en
"Forest of Bliss is an unsparing yet redemptive account of the inevitable griefs, religious passions and frequent happinesses that punctuate daily life in Benares, India's most holy city. The film unfolds from one sunrise to the next without commentary, subtitles or dialogue. It is an attempt to give the viewer a wholly authentic, though greatly magnified and concentrated, sense of participation in the experiences examined by the film. "In late 1984 and early 1985 I was back in Benares making Forest Of Bliss, a film about which I had pondered at length since my first unsettling visit ten years earlier. I have shaped the film so that it occupies the time between two sunrises. It stands as an exclusively visual statement resorting neither to voiced commentary nor subtitles. It is about people being and also dying. Of the multitude at work, at play and at prayer, three individuals are seen in somewhat greater detail than others. They are: a Healer of extraordinary geniality who attends pained and troubled people both in his modest home above Manikarnika, the main cremation ground, and the Durga temple late at night; the baleful and untouchable king of the cremation grounds, who vigorously exercises his hereditary rights to sell sacred fire and grass to mourners; and an unusually conscientious priest who performs sacred rites at a small shrine he maintains near the Ganges. Seeing Forest of Bliss completed, I am quite certain that the animals, especially the dogs, have an importance I merely glimpsed as I was shooting. The dogs and, of course, the River" (Robert Gardner)."
"A film without voiceover commentary, involves the viewer in an intense encounter with daily life in Benares, India's most holy city, from one sunrise to the next. It looks at specifics, and but also opens itself to larger concerns such as the eternal cycles and metamorphoses of water, earth, flesh wood and fire, wind and the spirit."
"A film without voiceover commentary, involves the viewer in an intense encounter with daily life in Benares, India's most holy city, from one sunrise to the next. It looks at specifics, but also opens itself to larger concerns such as the eternal cycles and metamorphoses of water and earth, flesh and wood, and fire, wind, and the spirit."@en
"This film defies categories. Filmed in the ancient city of Benares to which the filmmaker made four separate visits, its nominal subject is the ceremonies and industries associated with human death, or more specifically how the living institutionalise and sanctify death. However, it is neither an ethnographic or documentary record. Instead the viewer is placed in a position closer to that of a participant rather than an objective viewer. No commentary or explanatory intertitles or subtitles are used; the soundtrack is composed entirely of location sound although the film is highly structured through editing. The filmmaker offers traces of narrative which he refuses to sustain. The title refers to Benares but through its mythological and ironic allusions (there is no forest) Gardner suggests universal meaning in a cinematic equivalent of the poetic."
"A film without commentary, subtitles or dialogue on daily life in Benares, India's most holy city, from one sunrise to the next."
"A documentary on the Holy City of Benares, India, including dailycustoms and religious rituals."
"Documentaire sur la cité sainte de Bénarès, Inde. Les coutumes quotidiennes et les rites religieux."
"A documentary filmed in the Holy City of Benares, India. Robert Gardner's unique approach to documentary filmmaking places this film on the divide between ethnographic filmmaking and a more personal filmmaking process whose goals are closer to literature or poetry. Forest Of Bliss examines the daily customs and religious rituals that take place on the ghats of the river Ganges. The film unfolds during the course of a single day, taking the viewer on a journey through the industry that revolves around the dead and the dying. Images of the ghats where the dead are cremated and the death houses where the poor spend their final days are contrasted with sequences documenting the traffic and hectic streets of modern Benares. Forest of Bliss is a unique documentary film in many ways, the most obvious being that the original Hindi is not translated or subtitled, forcing the viewer to experience the holy city of Benares much as any first time visitor would, directly, and without commentary."@en
"A documentary filmed in the Holy City of Benares, India. Robert Gardner's unique approach to documentary filmmaking places this film on the divide between ethnographic filmmaking and a more personal filmmaking process whose goals are closer to literature or poetry. Forest Of Bliss examines the daily customs and religious rituals that take place on the ghats of the river Ganges. The film unfolds during the course of a single day, taking the viewer on a journey through the industry that revolves around the dead and the dying. Images of the ghats where the dead are cremated and the death houses where the poor spend their final days are contrasted with sequences documenting the traffic and hectic streets of modern Benares. Forest of Bliss is a unique documentary film in many ways, the most obvious being that the original Hindi is not translated or subtitled, forcing the viewer to experience the holy city of Benares much as any first time visitor would, directly, and without commentary."
"A documentary on the Holy City of Benares, India, including daily customs and religious rituals."
"An unsparing account of the inevitable griefs, religious passions and happinesses that punctuate daily life in Benares, India's most holy city."@en