The Monk & the Gun

On a lark I signed us up to go see this movie called the Monk and the Gun at the Asian Society on Park here in NY. I don't actually remember where I actually heard about it - maybe email because I subscribe. Here's the trailer. It doesn't give too much away. The director is Pawo Choyning Dorji. He did a little setup before and then did a Q&A after. The movie has been making the festival circuit, premiered and maybe Telluride, and was long-listed for a foreign Oscar. It was the first ever entry from Bhutan. Pawo had done one movie before, the Lunana, the Yak in the Classroom, which I would like to see. 

So now that I've got all of the trailers out of the way. The experience of the movie was great. It was Friday night and I had to go into the city, and I don't like going out too much nowadays, with the severe sound sensitivity, etc. And I don't like spending too much money. Concerts are all like 100+ a ticket which I can afford, but why. Really, why. And then my hearing was so destroyed after seeing Redd Kross a few weeks ago. I've never had that happen before, but my ears were messed up something fierce afterwards. My wife sounded like a squeaky robot, and since then she's pointed out that I say "what" a lot and she has to repeat herself. So next time I see the doctor, I will mention this and see a specialist. In the meantime, I will reduce my exposure to noise - possibly by moving to Bhutan, and meditating in a monastery in the foothills of the Himalayas, far away from people that think consumerism, sports and fashion are "cool" and say "like" all the time 

After hearing about the movie, the first thing I did was look up Bhutan. And that's pretty much the first thing people have asked me when I've talked about the movie. Where is Bhutan? Bhutan reminds me a little bit of Andorra. It's this country that managed to retain it's sovereignity, despite - as Pawo pointed out - it's sandwiched between the world's most populous democracy (India) and the world's biggest communist nation. (China.) If you want to get to Bhutan, you head north from India until you hit the Himalayas. It's to the right of Nepal, and Bangladesh, straight north from the Bay of Bengal.  

Some interesting facts about Bhutan - they are famous for having a GHI - a Happiness Index, rather than a GNP. They were the last nation on earth to have internet and to open up to outside influence. They still don't have a lot of tourism and they don't let anyone climb their mountains and leave their parks garbage-strewn. Thus they are home to a few of the last unclimbed Himalayan peaks in the world. 72% of the country is covered in forest, and by law that needs to remain above 62%. They are the only carbon negative country in the world. They have universal free healthcare and education - which is taught in English. And they only transitioned from being a hereditary monarchy to being a democracy in 2008 – and that's what this movie is about. 

The movie begins with a slow burn. Many wide shots of the gorgeous rural landscape, and the movie moves as slow as the Bhutanese, before picking up. We see the locals getting a TV for the first time. We hear over the radio that they are going to try "mock elections" first, so that the Bhutanese citizens can learn how to vote. We see them having to learn to register (why would I know my birthday? Why would someone have such useless information?) and how the choices of democracy starting creating divisions where there was none before. And in the midst of all this, a Lama, or senior monk, asks for a gun. All the changes that are going on, call for it. Ominously. (I think that an Bhutanese citizen would know what he wants the gun for, but for us, it's a mystery.) To thicken the plot, a foreigner is introduced - an American gun collector. We see the American gun collector travel across country to meet with someone who has a collectible - an old civil war rifle. He wants to buy it for a ALOT of money but before he can get the cash, the old guy gives it away to a monk who takes it to the old Lama - what's he going to use it for? 

The movie crescendos with the voting, and the gathering of the full moon called for by the Lama, and we find out why he needs the gun. 

An expertly constructed screenplay, with some timely and pointed commentary on guns and modernity– it achieves it's intention. It's a perfect little vacation, that leaves you feeling refreshed and wondering - why are we in such a hurry to destroy ourselves in the pursuit of (the American version of) Happiness?