[Film Review] Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019) and The Monk and the Gun (2023)

One of the chief appeals and functions of cinema is to transport armchair travelers to vicariously experience some place absolutely foreign on this vast earth. For this matter, Bhutan couldn't been more alluring, a landlocked, mountainous, Buddhist, Southern Asian country few have the opportunity to visit.

Photographer-turned-filmmaker Pawo Choyning Dorji makes a big splash with his debut feature film LUNANA: A YAK IN THE CLASSROOM, which enters Oscar's Best International Feature Film race as a dark horse, becoming the first-ever Bhutan film to earn an Oscar nomination. His follow-up, THE MONK AND THE GUN, nearly repeats the feat, listed among the 15 finalists, only a nomination eventually fails to materialize.

LUNANA has a rather comprehensible story. It is safe to say, within 5 minutes, one is able to suss what the plot is going to develop. Ugyen (Sherab Dorji) is a young government teacher in Thimphu, Bhutan's capital. Eying to immigrate to Australia and pursue a singing career, during his last mandatory year of training, he is transferred to Lunana, a remote village with no transportation and takes a six-day trek to reach. With his heart hot to trot for the beckoning new life across the ocean, Ugyen accepts the task on sufferance. At any rate, his stint there will only last for several months. When the winter comes, he will be back in the city and free of any obligations.

A reluctant, detached teacher begins to care for his pre-teen students and fall in love with the secluded but breathtaking place and its kind-hearted people is a tired story, but LUNANA doesn't flinch from go down this familiar road. It takes the film approximately 40 minutes to bring Ugyen finally to his destination, and after discovering the austerity of the school's condition, his immediate reaction is to give up in spite of receiving a ceremonious welcome from the villagers.

It only takes a kid's guileless smile to soften Ugyen's heart, and the rest gets activated on a cruise control (Ugyen being fascinated by its folkways and touched by untainted human connections, including the titular yak). The film is very fortunate to find a girl called Pem Zam, who basically plays herself, the class captain blessed with heart-melting earnest and unmannered alacrity which partially accounts for saving the film from bogged in schmaltz. Needless to say, leading actor Sherab Dorji also credibly channels out Ugyen's predictable but internalized mental journey, and telegraphs that essential feeling of homeland-yearning in the final close-up, a critical moment that encapsulates the film's tenor.

After cutting his teeth in LUNANA, Dorji feels confident to explore a multiplex narrative in THE MONK AND THE GUN with a measured pace, where three major plots ultimately converge together in a full-moon ceremony carried out by a venerable lama (Choejay).

At the behest of the lama, a young monk named Tashi (Wangchuk) is tasked to obtain two guns for the imminent ceremony. He procures an antique American rifle from a local devout denizen and crosses his path with an American weapon collector Ronald Colman (Einhorn) who also sets his sights on the said rifle. Via a local guide Benji (Sonam), Ronald eventually secure a tentative deal with Tashi, bartering two AK-47s for the rifle.

A more specific backdrop is that after King Jigme Singye Wangchuck voluntarily abdicates in 2006, the kingdom is on the brink of their first democratic election (the year is circa 2008, indicated by the footage of QUANTUM OF SOLACE seen on the TV). In the town of Ura, government functionary Tshering Yangden (Sherpa), who is a staunch advocate for democracy, puts out all the stops to inculcate her beliefs to the countrified, monarchist townspeople and prods them to partake in a mock election. Meanwhile, a rift starts to encroach on the contentment of Choephel's (Jatsho) family, as its members differs on the candidates they endorse.

Eventually, it is the sagacious words of Tshomo (Lhamo), Choephel's meek wife, such as "If we do not fight for democracy, maybe we don't need it", and "even if democracy can bring happiness to my family in the long run, but my family has already been happy before that." (paraphrased here), that give Tshering serious pause for her noble cause. We all know the maxim "if it ain't break, don't fix it." and Dorji's lucid perception of Western democracy's intrinsically dividing nature is courageously swims against the tide of current global situations, which truly deserves a pat on his back!

The big question hovering over the film is what the lama will do with the guns, and Dorji gingers up some humor and levity in its sobering, peace-pledging eventuation as Ronald is sent up for his mercenary drive and vulgar preconception that everyone can be corrupted by mammon.

Both Dorji's films serenely and persuasively inculcate audience the cherished concord between tradition and modernity, rural primitivism and urban mentality, sacrality and profanity, on top of the default panoply to the country's wanderlust-enkindling landscapes. But most of all they effuse a whiff of zen equanimity that is just what the doctor ordered for us, earthbound doomsayers.

referential entries: Tran Anh Hung's THE VERTICAL RAY OF THE SUN (2000, 7.3/10); Pema Tseden's BALLOON (2019, 7.3/10); Otto Bell's THE EAGLE HUNTRESS (2016, 7.6/10).

Title: Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom

Year: 2019

Country: Bhutan, China

Language: Dzongkha, English

Genre: Family, Drama

Director/Screenwriter: Pawo Choyning Dorji

Cinematography: Jigme Tenzing

Editor: Ku Hsiao-Yun

Cast:

Sherab Dorji

Ugyen Norbu Lhendup

Kelden Lhamo Gurung

Pem Zam

Kunzang Wangdi

Tshering Dorji

Tsheri Zom

Sonam Tashi

Rating: 7.6/10

Title: The Monk and the Gun

Year: 2023

Country: Bhutan, Taiwan, France, USA, Hong Kong

Language: Dzongkha, English

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Director/Screenwriter: Pawo Choyning Dorji

Music: Frederic Alvarez

Cinematography: Jigme Tenzing

Editor: Ku Hsiao-Yun

Cast:

Tandin Wangchuk

Harry Einhorn

Tandin Sonam

Tandin Phubz

Deki Lhamo

Yuphel Lhendup Selden

Pema Zangmo Sherpa

Choeying Jatsho

Kelsang Choejay

Phub Dorji

Rating: 7.5/10