SOURCE: Strick, Philip. Review of Little Buddha, by Bernardo Bertolucci. Sight and Sound 4, no. 6 (June 1994): 53–54.

In the following review, Strick offers a mixed assessment of Little Buddha.

Continuing the symmetry of The Last Emperor and The Sheltering Sky, Bertolucci completes his oriental trilogy with [Little Buddha,] another tale of innocents abroad. While it will doubtless come as no surprise to committed Buddhists, the journeys of Pu Yi and the ill-fated Moresbys from lives of useless luxury to the informative extremes of destitution turn out closely to parallel the path taken by Siddhartha, whose serene childhood—lotus flowers sprouting at every footfall—left him ill-prepared for the inevitabilities of adulthood.

Conveniently, Bertolucci's own preference for privation, venturing where no camera has gone before in his attempts to evade Western consumerism, echoes the same learning process, the need for reassurance growing more acute with the advancing years. Borrowing from Paul...