"You two have no future together."
Valley of Flowers (French: La Vallée des fleurs) is a 2006 French-German-Indian independent film directed by Indian director Pan Nalin starring Indian actors Milind Soman, Naseeruddin Shah and French actress Mylene Jampanoi in the leading roles.
This film provides examples of:
- Banishing Ritual:
- Yeti attempts to use a Chod ritual to end Ushna when she's still partners in crime with Jalan. But she eludes him.
- He tracks her down in Tokyo, in her last incarnation as Sayuri. She's given up in despair after she loses Jalan for good. Yeti performs the Chod ritual while she lies accepting of the inevitable at his feet. Her physical form dissipates in mist, leaving behind only the demonic mask that he returns to the shrine where it was stolen from before the movie started.
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Jalan and Ushna both pursue the Elixir of Life in the hopes that will mean eternity together. They ignore multiple warnings, including from Yeti, that it won't work out as they intended. They don't realize that each sip of the Elixir reverses the previous state of the drinker. Jalan becomes an immortal who does not age and cannot die by any means. Ushna, actually a demonic spirit appearing as a beautiful woman, loses her immortality. Jalan shoots her thinking that it won't harm her. But her body dies, and she becomes trapped in the cycle of incarnation. Each spends the next two centuries in different forms of immortality that keep them apart, the very thing they were trying to avoid.
- Book Ends:
- The opening scene has Jalan's bandits raid a caravan on the Silk Route. A demonic mask drops out of the luggage. A mist emanates from the mask, and gives way to the first appearance of Ushna.
- The ending scene has Ushna dissolve away into mist as her earthly existence ends, leaving behind the demonic mask. Yeti takes the mask and places it in a shrine in a cave, presumably for safe keeping and to prevent it from causing harm to anyone else.
- The Dreaded: Yeti's reputation precedes him.
- The locals look to Yeti to protect them from Jalan's band. But they are shown to be in awe and fear of him, as though they themselves were under interrogation.
- Ushna is that much more afraid of him, as he's a Chod saint who has the power to exorcize her.
- Hated by All: Jalan, in Japan at least, where he's completely reviled for his practice of assisted suicide for terminally ill clients.
- Hope Spot: The prospect of living together forever becomes the Spot for Jalan and Ushna not once but twice. But the universe just won't allow it.
- Just Like Robin Hood: Jalan and his band think of themselves in this way. They justify their making a living off of robbing caravans on the Silk Route on the basis that they're freeing themselves from the oppressive landlords who are no better.
- Love Makes You Evil: Jalan and his band thought of themselves as bandits with a code of honor. His obsessive love with Ushna leads him into far worse directions.
- Philosophical Parable: The movie itself is an exploration of concepts of karmic balance, and ending suffering by letting go of self and ego and attachment, in Eastern religions. Jalan and Ushna cross more than one
Moral Event Horizon as their story progresses. And each time it means that they only increase their karmic debt, and increase their suffering.- They spend the first act of the movie robbing caravans of material riches. The camera often focuses on the coins, gemstones and tapestries that they plunder. They are already racking up a significant amount of bad karma with these actions, and that's just the start.
- Their next Moral Event Horizon is when they take to robbing people of their spiritual gifts, such as good luck or the power to levitate, which are actually more valuable to their rightful holders than any material possessions.
- Their next Moral Event Horizon is to steal the Elixir of Life in a vain effort to spend eternity together in the physical world as eternal lovers. Nothing is permanent in the universe, and all things good or bad must come to an end to preserve balance in the universe. Jalan and Ushna trying to spend eternity together amounts to a deliberate decision to defy immutable laws of the universe. And then the universe itself, with Yeti as its agent, sees to it that their efforts are all in vain.
- That in turn makes the statement that the desire for immortality, desiring permanence in a universe where it is just not possible, is an obstacle to the achievement of nirvana. Letting go of ego and self and attachment to end suffering.
- Obsessive romantic attachment is likewise depicted as an obstacle to the attainment of enlightenment.
- The desire for immortality and romantic obsession together becomes an even worse mixture. Jalan and Ushna's efforts therefore lead not the bliss they hope to enjoy together, but to centuries long suffering that is in proportion to the karmic imbalance they have brought about and needs to be corrected.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Yeti is resolute in fulfilling his duty, and ending the karmic imbalance brought about by Jalan and Ushna. He sympathizes with them and their desire to be together forever, but that doesn't change his duty.
- He tells Jalan with complete sincerity that he never had any desire to kill him, and now truly pities him as "living forever" is something he would never wish upon him.
- He allows a distraught Ushna (as Sayuri in her last incarnation) to embrace him. And his eyes are filled with compassion and pity as she breaks down sobbing in his arms. But that does not change his duty, and he still proceeds with the Chod ritual to end her earthly existence.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?:
- Jalan spends two centuries as an immortal who truly cannot be killed by any means. And he hates every minute of it after losing Ushna at the start of that immortality. He calmly tells Tokyo police that he's attempted suicide at least 200 times during those two centuries.
- Ushna is trapped in a cycle of reincarnation where the only thing she ever remembers with each mortal life is that she loved Jalan. And she's equally desperate to end her state.
- Implicitly subverted by Yeti, who is apparently an immortal agent of the universe. He pities Jalan once he learns that Jalan has cursed himself to an immortality he will hate. Yeti comes across as rather accepting of his immortality, neither desperately wanting to end it, nor operating under any delusion that it will lead to endless pleasure. He's The Stoic who accepts that he has a duty to maintain that transcends time and physical existence.
