TY - CHAP
T1 - Where is Shangri-La? Imagining Kathmandu in film
AU - Karki, Dikshya
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Zhen Zhang, Sangjoon Lee, Debashree Mukherjee, and Intan Paramaditha; individual chapters, the contributors
PY - 2024/1/1
Y1 - 2024/1/1
N2 - Shangri-La, a mythical kingdom in the Himalayas, continues to fascinate tourists, writers, and artists since John Hilton first wrote about it in his novel Lost Horizon (1933). This chapter explores the imaginative geographies of a utopian Shangri-La in Euro-American cinema. More specifically, it argues that Shangri-La has most enduringly been located in Nepal, with its capital city Kathmandu providing many of the features that have come to be stereotypically associated with a Himalayan form of eastern mysticism. Films such as The Night Train to Kathmandu, released in 1988, and Doctor Strange, released in 2016, disclose a world of transnational imaginaries and colonial fantasies. At the same time, the warm reception of these films in Nepal indicates the role of Orientalist mythmaking and popular culture within tourist economies and local aspirations to gain a share in global markets.
AB - Shangri-La, a mythical kingdom in the Himalayas, continues to fascinate tourists, writers, and artists since John Hilton first wrote about it in his novel Lost Horizon (1933). This chapter explores the imaginative geographies of a utopian Shangri-La in Euro-American cinema. More specifically, it argues that Shangri-La has most enduringly been located in Nepal, with its capital city Kathmandu providing many of the features that have come to be stereotypically associated with a Himalayan form of eastern mysticism. Films such as The Night Train to Kathmandu, released in 1988, and Doctor Strange, released in 2016, disclose a world of transnational imaginaries and colonial fantasies. At the same time, the warm reception of these films in Nepal indicates the role of Orientalist mythmaking and popular culture within tourist economies and local aspirations to gain a share in global markets.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85195955272&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4324/9781003266952-18
DO - 10.4324/9781003266952-18
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85195955272
SN - 9781032199405
SP - 156
EP - 164
BT - The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas
PB - Taylor and Francis
ER -