Tharlo is Tibetan writer-director Pema Tseden’s beguiling tale of one man’s identity and loneliness amidst the changing face of Tibet.
The titular Tharlo is a shepherd who heads to the city to obtain a government-issued ID card. Once there, a chance meeting with Yangchuo, a distinctly modern young Tibetan woman, throws Tharlo into a journey that strips his identity to the core. This is the story of one man’s self-realisation, marking the profound difference between knowing and understanding one’s self.
Strikingly shot in black and white with an austere aesthetic, the camera perceptively captures Tharlo’s presence in frame and his concurrent sense of alienation. Filled with symbolic imagery, Tharlo also paints a wider allegory for Tibet’s identity crisis, its struggle to reconcile deep-rooted tradition with the inevitable march of modernity. Tseden’s film is an intensely measured piece of arthouse cinema, one that unfailingly rewards (and demands) investment.
