It has not escaped the notice of most critics that Bertolucci's new film, Little Buddha is unlike any of his previous works. Gone are the tortuous, often sadistic relationships that punctuated his work from Before the Revolution to The Last Emperor, here replaced by a remarkably beatific atmosphere, one that has evoked such epithets as simple, serene, and even “ethereal nonsense.”1

The film focuses on a young Seattile, Jesse Conrad (Alex Wiesen-danger), whose parents are contacted by a group of Tibetan monks with the news that Jesse appears to be the reincarnation of one of their teachers,