Borobudur: Beyond the Reach of Time

Dating from a thousand years ago - four centuries before the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe - the Buddhist temple of Borobudur stands in Java, a 400 feet square terraced pyramid festooned with stone carvings and reliefs and featuring five hundred figures of Buddha. The carvings tell stories of the life of Buddha, and the film retells (with the aid of traditional Indonesian dancers) the myths of the great world religion called after him. It also charts in some depth the enormous reconstruction and restoration project to which Borobudur has been subjected in recent years, for the monument has suffered erosion by the elements and subsidence, and the greatest efforts have been needed to counteract these.