Bhutan’s entry in the Best International Film category has made it to the final shortlist of five nominees at Oscars 2022. Who knows, it may even win the honour. I have seen the film. Its simplicity and elegance are exemplary. Its love for its country is so genuine although I did not see anyone running across the frames with a flag.
And though I do not understand a word of the Dzongkha language, I hardly consulted the subtitles to get the point. This is the way cinema was always meant to be. The least important component in cinema should be the spoken word. One reason why Indian films always get snubbed at the Oscars is their verbosity. Indian filmmakers are petrified of silences. They make the characters speak constantly to ensure the audience does not lose interest.
There is no yakking in Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom. The yak in the title is the buffalo-like animal that sits quietly, sagely in the classroom as Ugyen [Sherab Dorji, a natural], the new teacher from the city. We can call him the neo-avatar of Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love, who comes to terms with teaching a bunch of woozily unspoilt, uncorrupted little children in a village in Bhutan, who have never seen a car, do not have paper to write on, and are without a blackboard in the classroom.
This could have been just one more fluffy film about a teacher who gets it right for unruly students. To mistake this kind, compassionate, gentle film as one more soppy classroom drama would be a huge mistake. There is an unplumbed volume of emotions in the storytelling, the kind that does not plead for attention. It gets it right.
Director Pawo Choyning Dorji [take a bow, lady] weaves through the simple tale [almost a fable] of a young man’s tryst with unalloyed innocence up in the highest peak of the scenic mountains in Bhutan, where the only way to reach is by trekking.
Supple, poetic in a very unassuming way, Ugyen’s gentle adventures in Lunana verge on the Arcadian. You know the untouched unspoilt villagers and their yearning to be educated. This film, however, goes beyond platitudes and pleasantries to explore the dynamics of uncorrupted living.
Should a civilization, untarnished by the ravages of the digital age, be welcomed? What about industrial progress, what about moving on? Ugyen wants to migrate to Australia [like a lot of Bhutanese do]. Once there, his isolation is shown to be absolute: the feeling of rare precious belonging that Ugyen discovered up in the mountains of Lunana is much missed in the alien land as he strums an old familiar Western tune in an uncaring bar.
He stops. He plays a traditional Bhutanese song. Like Manoj Kumar singing "Hai preet jahan ki reet sada" in Purab Aur Paschim [1970].Though not quite.
It is a deeply heartbreaking moment of homecoming far away from home. For us to believe that Ugyen should have stayed in the wilderness of Lunana is such a facile view of life’s journey. Sometimes we have to break hearts to make dreams come true. It is heartbreaking to see Ugyen turn his back on little pert Pem Zam [whom I immediately wanted to adopt] in Lunana, to wave a sad goodbye to the entire village as it accompanies him to the outskirts to bid a sighing goodbye.
I have not stopped wondering about what will happen to Pem Zam. That is what movies should do to you. They should take something away from you for keeps as you take something away too. Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom does that. Will it win the Oscar? I certainly hope so. It is certainly a finer film, more controlled and far less self-indulgent than Japan’s shortlisted entry Drive My Car.
Kadaisi Vivasayi is about getting back to the roots. Here is the film that should represent us at the Oscars next year.
In telling the story of an aged impoverished farmer whose only concern in life is his little plot of land which he tills till kingdom-come, writer-director K Manikandan has assumed a tone of narration and a texture of framing which are as basic, simple, and unadorned as the protagonist himself.
Eighty-plus Mayandi [played by a real farmer Nalandi] leads an absolutely austere life. There are no adornments of any kind around him. His life is his plot of land, which he nurtures like a child. The fact that he can hardly hear makes Mayandi even more blessed-out in his single-minded devotion to his farmland.
The tribal village where the film is shot makes use of the local population to enhance the sense of a documentary rather than a drama, until Mayandi is summoned to the local police station for killing and burying a peacock in his land. Through the police and court proceedings, Mayandi has only one thing to say: “May I go back to my land?”
The presiding judge, a kindly young woman [Raichal Rabecca Philip] soon senses she in the presence o f heightened innocence that comes naturally only to those who are eternally wedded to Nature. The protective shield she tries to build around the vulnerable old farmer is never constructed into a convenient melodrama. This is a film on the poetry of poverty, where austerity of expression and economy of execution are paramount.
What I found a little disconcerting is the uninterrupted sweetness and kindness that Mayandi generates in those around him. All the villagers, including old women, young wastrels, and potbellied cops have a secret crush on Mayandi. Soon, the female judge too joins the admiration club, personally supervising Mayandi’s release, expressing a filial concern about his health.
Towards the end, she flings all professionalism aside and joins the villagers in their ritual celebrations. By the time we arrive at this point in the sparse story, the mood is so artless and so filled with a sense of reclaimed heritage that it is no longer an issue where realism is buried under heaps of fantasy. But so what?
And this is where Manikandan scores big. He also serves as the cinematographer of his own idealised perception of Man and Nature, which makes the task of identifying the basic essentials of the main premise easier to accentuate.
Manikandan has a marvelous support system in the actors [most of whom do not even know what acting is] and technicians. Vijay Sethupathi brings in a stirring magic surrealism as a psychologically disengaged wanderer grieving for love. His story could be a whole film in itself. I would have preferred Manikandan to focus entirely on Mayandi. Yogi Babu, with an elephant by his side, is an annoying distraction.
Kadaisi Vivasayi is a work of tremendous elegance, simplicity, and emotional integrity. It does not have a single artificial bone in its body. Even the all-pervasive benignity that embraces the narrative mood, is eventually not an obstacle, but a reminder that all you finally need is love. And a bit of farmland.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.
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