I watched this again a few nights ago and the thought occurred that some of the members here might enjoy the shaving scene as well, but then I somehow managed to forget it until this evening (imagine that!). The scene is one of a novice monk getting his head shaved after his entry into the monastery. The sound is brutally real (you like audio feedback?? well here ya' go!), and the razor itself is a model of modesty, to say the least. A quick hand stropping and the older monk shaves the young fella's dome without any worrisome "prep", or even a lather come to that! The 13 year old doesn't seem too bothered by it all, though there are one or two winces along the way; but he's all smiles again and inspecting his newly smoothed dome soon enough. It's from a nice lil' documentary film titled The Tibetan Book of the Dead : The Great Liberation and I post a link to it here not for any evangelical religiosity or whatever, just an interesting film. Leonard Cohen narrates and it's got something of a vintage look & feel to it as well, even though it's only 20 years old now (1994). The shave scene starts at about 03:10, and the whole film is only 45 minutes long. Hope you enjoy it.
Believe it or not I had a razor sent to me from Kathmandu in Napal for honing when it turned up I was quite shocked.
Nice Jaime, was it a folding razor? The one in the film looks to be as simple as a DE blade slotted into the end of a wood handle then tied up tight. Pretty basic. I've seen the odd Chinese style folding razor on ebay here & there, but Kathmandu's a wee bit more exotic than Beijing! Sure it wasn't just Michael Palin off on another one of those BBC adventures?
No Chris it was an old Sheffield straight razor, I had no idea where the razor was coming from until he contacted me over on the straight razor place until the razor arrived.
Talk about an exercise in minimalism, hehehe. bdalemauger your right enough about the sound, fairly sends the shivers down your spine, aye? There doesn't appear to be any fancy sound editing there either - that's just how it was. There's a laudable degree of skill involved as well. The senior monk handles that flimsy DE-loaded contraption with a confidence and dexterity I doubt many of us could match! I can just about imagine pinching the wood splints on either side and getting the DE blade to stiffen up a bit, but Mr. Oldschool nailed it - there'd be bound to be some blood-letting involved too! The senior monk has quite obviously done this a few times before...
