Paths of the Soul

The film is restful and exhausting, inviting us into contemplation: of Tibet's epic-scale natural beauty, which has rarely been filmed with such you-are-there patience and intimacy, each new horizon these pilgrims reach a reward for their perseverance — and yours.

Filmed in simple documentary fashion and performed with immaculate conviction by a non-professional cast, the pic, helmed by Zhang Yang (“Shower,” “Getting Home”) is a stirring study in faith and spirituality that will inspire many viewers to think about big and small questions of life.

The movie’s physicality is never pushed to suggest suffering. It’s like a constant meditation, something to absorb and exhale.

Blurring the confines between documentary and fiction, it takes the empathetic viewer on an incredible journey that can be almost as painful to follow vicariously from a theater seat as it must have been on the pilgrims.

The movie so upends the traditions of documentary and narrative filmmaking that “dramatizes” may be inaccurate — the filmmakers followed the real pilgrims for a full year, after all. But the movie is so well made and engaging that such distinctions will make little difference to the viewer.

The film develops into a stirring salute to their deep-rooted spiritual devotion and quiet determination.

Zhang Yang achieves an astonishing immediacy by simply allowing the prostration process to play out over and over with minimal aesthetic interference.