The Dalai Lama is revered for the purity and holiness of his life, as well as for his resistance to the Chinese Communists. He eventually fled Tibet in 1959, much against the will of the Communist authorities, and has lived in exile. Instead of the streets of New York, Kundun is set in the magnificent and remote country of Tibet. Instead of Catholic ritual, Scorcese focuses on the symbolism and spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism. Instead of fast moving and violent narratives, Scorcese adopts a leisurely, dreamlike pace.
Reality gives way abruptly to otherworldly and often frightening visions.
Scorcese uses this slower pace to illustrate first the leisurely consciousness of a child discovering the world and secondly the visionary quality of Tibetan Buddhism. Instead of gangsters, prize fighters and urban loners, Scorcese tells us how the Dalai Lama is identified as a child, how he grows in spiritual understanding, and how he confronts the invasion of his country by the Chinese Communists in 1948. A man dedicated to ideals of Buddhism, including non-violence, he tries to come to terms with the Chinese invaders and tries to find common ground with his own tradition and the atheistic Marxism of the Chinese. He finds parallels between the Buddhist emphasis on the value of compassion and the Marxist emphasis on equality and justice for the working class. The Chinese initially give the Dalai Lama and Tibet a certain degree of autonomy, but gradually, they impose tighter control on the country and start repressing Buddhism, especially monasteries, which are centers of tradition and national feeling.