Eleven journeys in a Nepalese cable-car

Daniel Nelson

Manakamana

Image by Manakamana

Simples.

The camera films 10 individuals, pairs or trios as the car travels to and from the Manakamana  temple, the sacred place of the Hindu Goddess Bhagwati, who is widely believed to grant the wishes of those making the pilgrimage.

The fixed camera’s gaze is unwavering. The passengers sit directly facing it: behind their heads a view of the cables and the hills unfolds, 11 times. Conversation is also captured.

This is observational documentary taken to the nth degree.

Most of the passengers are local people (a boy, an old man, a married couple, three elderly women, a pair of musicians, a pop group), so you see what Nepalis of all ages wear in this particular situation, where they look, what they comment on, how they relate to each other. It’s film anthropology.

Nothing dramatic occurs, nothing remarkable is said. Sometimes nothing is said at all (that includes the trip made by a gaggle of goats). It’s very quiet, apart from snatches of birdsong and the rattling of the cable car passing over the supporting pylons. You may find It mesmerising and happily pick over the snippets of conversation and note the stiffness of the men and feel you have a tiny but telling glimpse of life in the hills. Or you may be bored.

One passenger notes that “last time we were here there were no houses. Now they are everywhere” and that “When I think of the old days, now life is better.” Another points out that when he came as a young man the same journey took three days. On the return leg a woman confides, “I’ve been waiting to come for a long time. Now that wish has been fulfilled.” The pop group take selfies.

One of the 11 journeys has music, as the musicians tune and then play their sarangis, and an endearingly touching scene as two women relapse into childhood giggles as they try and fail to eat their ice-creams daintily.

A film of small pleasures.

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