Siddhartha (re-release)

An extraordinary achievement on all possible levels.

A beautiful and timeless achievement, Conrad Rooks' 1972 adaptation of Herman Hesse's appropriation of East Indian mythology still entrances.

Sven Nykvist's golden-hued cinematography perfectly suits Hesse's mind-expanding narrative of Buddhist enlightenment.

Apologies to Conrad Rooks, but the only reason his 1972 film, Siddhartha, is getting a 30th-anniversary rerelease is the appeal of seeing Sven Nykvist's amazing cinematography restored to its full splendor.

Some aspects of Siddhartha seem terribly dated: the '60s-ish nude sequences, the wispy music, the big-eyed earnest acting. But it is a lushly beautiful film. Shooting largely in natural light, Nykvist creates a poetry more beautiful than Hesse's prose and as profound as the author's message.

Rooks has chosen to give this a surface elegance which sometimes robs the film of its needed earthiness and sensuality in its love angle and more robustness in detailing the vagaries of social aspects and values at the time.

Fails to capture the essence of Hesse's book, try though it may. It is more a series of filmed events than an interpretation of the story.