Pawo Choyning Dorji’s “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Dzongkha: ལུང་ནག་ན) (2019)
Charming parable of a young Bhutanese man faced with the choice of pursuing his dreams or staying where he’s needed is sentimental though tempered by an ending which leaves just enough unresolved to dull the edge of preachiness
Telling the story of Ugyen, a young Bhutanese man with dreams of becoming a singer in the west who is serving the last of his five years of national service as a teacher, the film is a late coming-of-age story. While I think most will find this an engaging fish-out-of-water story, it does at times fall into tropes and can be a little flat at times. While I do like its focus on the importance of community as opposed to self-interest, the lines are sometimes drawn too clearly despite having an ending which isn’t explicit.
It’s not often we get to see this part of the world and its setting is consistently interesting and beautiful though that lack of context makes it difficult to judge some of the questions posed to Ugyen in the course of the film. For example, he has a meeting early on with a government official who calls out the virtues and importance of his work as well as the strengths of Bhutan which feel a tad nationalistic to western ears.
Ugyen who has coasted through his first four years of national service is disinterested in teaching and seeing it as a check box in the way of his dreams of pursuing a singing career in Australia. Raised by his grandmother, she encourages him to accept his latest assignment to the world’s most remote school in the village of Lunana several days by bus and foot and situated high in the mountains. This isolation presents a series of challenges to Ugyen but also opportunities to evaluate his life.
Falling short of a classic but nonetheless enjoyable, this is a sentimental though thoughtful story which leaves just enough unresolved to dull the edge of preachiness while giving the audience visibility of a corner of the world we rarely see.
