I think the only other film I've seen set even partly in Bhutan is Little Buddha. By contrast, this one was shot entirely there, under rigorous conditions, by a Bhutanese production company. That alone would give me a reason to check it out, in addition to the Best Foreign Film nomination and the intriguing added subtitle.
In Thimphu, Ugyen (Sherab Dorji) is a terribly unmotivated teacher who would rather pursue a singing career in Australia, but his teaching contract demands one more year. He is reassigned to the sole elementary school in Lunana, a mountain village so remote it requires days of hiking to reach. Almost as soon as he arrives, he sees how underresourced it is and wants to go back, but he'll have to wait a week while his guides and their mules rest up. In the meantime, he might as well teach. Thankfully, he has enough discipline not to leave before the conclusion of a lesson....
Yes, there is eventually a literal yak in the classroom, for reasons I won't go into. No, it's not played for laughs. It does not behave like a stereotypical bull in a china shop; the students could almost forget it's there. But the title could just as easily refer to Ugyen, more for his value to the community than for being an out-of-place yet gentle oaf.
I won't say Ugyen ever becomes a great teacher. He seems to alternate between assuming too much and too little of what the class likely already knows. It's not clear that anyone learns a lot. Of course, under the circumstances, they can't be picky. I suspect that the nine students are lumped together from different age groups.
Among other problems, Lunana has unreliable electricity, which is especially bad for a guy who previously texted and listened to headphones whenever not in live conversation. Buildings have poor insulation for a cold area, which would have been a dealbreaker for me. The classroom has no blackboard and exceedingly little paper. (I read that the real Lunana is considerably more prosperous, but that's a recent development.)
The upside of such poverty is that it engenders gratitude for every little thing. I can hardly imagine American children acting so eager for education. That seems to move Ugyen more than mere pity.
Lunana gets the bulk of the 109-minute screentime, so I couldn't learn much about other parts of Bhutan. Still, I inferred that English has a greater presence than I thought. Sometimes characters will briefly switch to it or borrow cognates from it, like in many Indian movies I've seen. Thimphu looks about as modern as any major city I've been to. The nation has a relatively authoritarian bent, hence the five-year teaching requirement. And unsurprisingly, traditional spiritual beliefs appear to run stronger in rural parts.
If this were a Hollywood flick, I would expect Ugyen to not only have a conspicuous impact but stay indefinitely, not least for the singer who captures his interest (Kelden Lhamo Gurung). He almost makes that decision, but Lunana isn't the kind of place you can leave in the winter. Nevertheless, I think I detected a hint that he'll return someday. He certainly won't forget it.
L:AYitC doesn't elicit strong feelings one way or another, but I'm glad I watched. It felt like a vacation without actual travel, and it got me thinking about lives very different from my own.
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