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concludes that all three children are part of Lama Dorje's reincarnation, representing the
Body, the Mind, and the Speech respectively. Soon after, he passes away, and his ashes are
given to the children who decide to commit them to the three natural elements of air (Raju),
earth (Gita) and water (Jesse). The final sequences depict the Conrad family expecting their
second child, united in assisting Jesse as he undertakes his sombre, ultimate task.
A dual cognitive scheme
The twofold level of the film's narrative is established from the beginning by the appearance
of a caption against the dark screen, immediately followed by the warm colours associated
with the embedded tale of Siddhartha's life - narrated in a past tense voiceover. The caption
reads: This film is inspired by the true life stories of several children and their extraordinary
voyage of discovery'; the following colour images depict an ancient parchment being
unwrapped, while the film's title appears on a bookrest and a voiceover utters the words
'Once upon a time...'. In this way, viewers are informed that a double thread will run through
the film, pertaining to both the worlds of reality and imagination. The real world narrative is
based on the search for Lama Dorje's reincarnation, which represents the motivation
providing the narrative with impetus and a forward-directed quality. It is a classic telic
narration which - by being based on 'models of goals and motivations conceptualized as
exterior-future-preferred states' - (Grodal, 1997: 118) provides a guide for viewers as they
hypothesize about narrative developments. This linearity is envisaged by Grodal in the
'interrelatedness of the forward-directed processes' of cognitive activities 'and the backward-
directed influence of goals [...] which are felt as causal determinants of the narrative and the
narrative actants' (Grodal, 1997: 118). The goal-structure usually implies several goals which
may either be 'independent, dependent on each other or mutually conflicting' (Grodal 1997:
118).
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