The final film from the late Pema Tseden, the visionary Chinese-Tibetan director who died unexpectedly last year aged 53, Snow Leopard shares themes with his previous pictures. In the sheep-herding story Tharlo (2015), and Balloon (2019), about spirituality, politics and birth control, Tseden turned a lens on the collision between tradition and progress in Tibetan culture.
Here, we follow a film crew from a local TV station as they report on an endangered snow leopard captured by a herding family after killing nine of their sheep. The family members are at odds over the animal’s fate: the firebrand older brother wants to slaughter it; his brother, a monk and wildlife photographer, and his father argue that the leopard – traditionally regarded as the spirit of the mountains – should be spared. It’s exquisitely photographed, but with its mystical interludes and very obviously CGI wildlife, the film lacks the earthy poetry of some of Tseden’s earlier work.
