The Tiger & The Guru

A figure walks toward you coming into focus from a tunnel originating in a half halo of light. The Guru. He stops in front of you for just a moment and walks away. Next he is coming down to you from an edenic forest. Foregrounded leaves frame his route... the gorgeous cinematography is preparing us as he turns and wals away once again.

But the goal of his tortuous path is brooding on a bench, not quite prepared yet for the wisdom we are longing for already. The Trees of Prospect Park and the verdant leaves softly offered are juxtaposed with the Bonsai, caged and obedient to its pruning. Freedom and flourishing beside the cold and caged. A Jungian journey down the steps not just to the brooder this time, but deeper down into his cage and the cage inside the cage 'potting' his anima with self-made chains held tight merely by gravity. The gravity of respectability. But the chains sway at the slightest whisper of tenderness and feral individuality.

The tiger is freed in the brooder's dream, but is she his soulmate or his own soul? A dream reminiscent of Soderberg's entry in the Eros trilogy. A pendant piece, perhaps, but more hopeful.

Peter Duncanson asks, as Solzhenitsyn did, "Are you from freedom?" Each viewer must consider their own answer, their own chains and their own journey. "The teacher will appear when the student is ready."

The Tiger & The Guru offers no simple solution. Great films never do. The film "merely points," as Picasso claimed for his art. It gently prods you to stretch and touch your Bonsai pot, the basement of your libidinal

economy where chains offer comfort and an amelioration of anxiety, but no freedom. No joy. No flourishing.

The tiger is artfully costumed in glorious simplicity a la Gilliam. A simplicity that is the highest sophistication as one of the many subtle metaphors dancing in Brooklyn.

Only see this film if you are ready to be challenged. Or see it if you need to be prepared to be challenged. Or just see it. If you ever think about your life, see it. Allow yourself to experience it, take what is relevant for you and recall it when you need to. See it.