LUNANA: A YAK IN THE CLASSROOM
****
Director: Pawo Choyning Dorji
Screenwriter: Pawo Choyning Dorji
Principal cast:
Sherab Dorji
Ugyen Norbu Lhendup
Kelden Lhamo Gurung
Pem Zam
Kunzang Wangdi
Tsheri Zom
Country: Bhutan
Classification: PG
Runtime: 109 mins.
Australian release date: 2 June 2022.
Bhutan, the Himalayan kingdom famed for checking on its inhabitants’ well-being by measuring Gross National Happiness rather than Gross Domestic Product, only has a small film industry so movies from ‘The Land of the Thunder Dragon’ are few and far between. Apart from Khyentse Norbu’s award-winning The Cup in 2000 and Travellers and Magicians in 2004, I can’t remember any released in Australia in recent times, so it’s great to see Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom on local screens. Pawo Choyning Dorji’s film is a delight and was recognised as such when it was selected to be one of the final five nominees at this year’s Oscars in the International Feature Film category (Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive my Car was the ultimate winner). It’s having a limited release here, so I advise you to run, don’t walk, to see it while you can. You’ll be glad you did. It’s a deceptively simple tale about a young man learning that often we fail to appreciate the things that are in front of us, always longing for the grass on the other side of the fence that we think will be greener.
Ugyen (Sherab Dorji) is a teacher, a young man who’s served four of the five years of compulsory service he owes to the government for his education. He’s fed up, though, and longs to travel to Australia where he hopes to launch a career as a professional singer. On the verge of quitting, his grandmother (Tsheri Zom) convinces him that he shouldn’t burn his bridges and must complete his final year; the teaching authorities are none too pleased with his cavalier attitude, however, so they send him to the remotest school in the land (and possibly the world) in a village called Lunana, population 56, high in the northern mountains. After an exhausting journey of many days walking, he arrives and is so appalled at the state of the school room and the lack of teaching resources that he declares to the village headman, Asha (Kunzang Wangdi), that he wishes to return to the capital Thimphu immediately. Asha tells him that he’ll have to wait a few days for the pack animals to rest before they can travel back down the mountain. The villagers, on the other hand, are completely enthused and grateful that their new teacher has arrived, especially the sweet class captain, nine-year-old Pem Zam (playing herself), and soon Ugyen begins to take his job more seriously. When he asks the children why they want him to remain as their teacher, they tell him that teachers can “touch the future,” a phrase that resonates with the young man.
As you’d expect, being shot in the Himalayas, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is visually stunning, a credit to cinematographer Jigme Tenzing. Choyning Dorji also makes a comment on the changing climate when, in one scene, a character laments the fact that the mountains are losing more and more snow every year. This is not the crux of the movie, though. It’s a charming coming-of-age story in which young Ugyen matures into manhood thanks to the lessons he is taught by the unsophisticated denizens of Lunana – indeed, what he learns from the villagers is possibly more important than the classes he teaches the children – and these things stay with Ugyen long after he has to return to the city. Talking about his reasons for wanting to make his film, the director has said that, “With Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, I wanted to tell a story where Ugyen… wishes to go in search of his happiness. However, he is sent on another journey… he reluctantly goes into a world that is unlike the modern world in every aspect. Along this journey he realizes what we so desperately seek in the outer material world, actually always exists within us, and that happiness is not really a destination but the journey.” What a lesson for a young teacher to learn.
Screenwriter: Pawo Choyning Dorji
Principal cast:
Sherab Dorji
Ugyen Norbu Lhendup
Kelden Lhamo Gurung
Pem Zam
Kunzang Wangdi
Tsheri Zom
Country: Bhutan
Classification: PG
Runtime: 109 mins.
Australian release date: 2 June 2022.
Bhutan, the Himalayan kingdom famed for checking on its inhabitants’ well-being by measuring Gross National Happiness rather than Gross Domestic Product, only has a small film industry so movies from ‘The Land of the Thunder Dragon’ are few and far between. Apart from Khyentse Norbu’s award-winning The Cup in 2000 and Travellers and Magicians in 2004, I can’t remember any released in Australia in recent times, so it’s great to see Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom on local screens. Pawo Choyning Dorji’s film is a delight and was recognised as such when it was selected to be one of the final five nominees at this year’s Oscars in the International Feature Film category (Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive my Car was the ultimate winner). It’s having a limited release here, so I advise you to run, don’t walk, to see it while you can. You’ll be glad you did. It’s a deceptively simple tale about a young man learning that often we fail to appreciate the things that are in front of us, always longing for the grass on the other side of the fence that we think will be greener.
Ugyen (Sherab Dorji) is a teacher, a young man who’s served four of the five years of compulsory service he owes to the government for his education. He’s fed up, though, and longs to travel to Australia where he hopes to launch a career as a professional singer. On the verge of quitting, his grandmother (Tsheri Zom) convinces him that he shouldn’t burn his bridges and must complete his final year; the teaching authorities are none too pleased with his cavalier attitude, however, so they send him to the remotest school in the land (and possibly the world) in a village called Lunana, population 56, high in the northern mountains. After an exhausting journey of many days walking, he arrives and is so appalled at the state of the school room and the lack of teaching resources that he declares to the village headman, Asha (Kunzang Wangdi), that he wishes to return to the capital Thimphu immediately. Asha tells him that he’ll have to wait a few days for the pack animals to rest before they can travel back down the mountain. The villagers, on the other hand, are completely enthused and grateful that their new teacher has arrived, especially the sweet class captain, nine-year-old Pem Zam (playing herself), and soon Ugyen begins to take his job more seriously. When he asks the children why they want him to remain as their teacher, they tell him that teachers can “touch the future,” a phrase that resonates with the young man.
As you’d expect, being shot in the Himalayas, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is visually stunning, a credit to cinematographer Jigme Tenzing. Choyning Dorji also makes a comment on the changing climate when, in one scene, a character laments the fact that the mountains are losing more and more snow every year. This is not the crux of the movie, though. It’s a charming coming-of-age story in which young Ugyen matures into manhood thanks to the lessons he is taught by the unsophisticated denizens of Lunana – indeed, what he learns from the villagers is possibly more important than the classes he teaches the children – and these things stay with Ugyen long after he has to return to the city. Talking about his reasons for wanting to make his film, the director has said that, “With Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, I wanted to tell a story where Ugyen… wishes to go in search of his happiness. However, he is sent on another journey… he reluctantly goes into a world that is unlike the modern world in every aspect. Along this journey he realizes what we so desperately seek in the outer material world, actually always exists within us, and that happiness is not really a destination but the journey.” What a lesson for a young teacher to learn.