‘The Monk and the Gun’ Assessment: From Bhutan, a Wry Satirical Comedy About Democracy and Violence

Anybody who needs to journey the world — vicariously, after all — will get a kick out of The Monk and the Gun, a movie from Bhutan that had its world premiere at this yr’s Telluride Movie Competition. Director Pawo Choyning Dorji earned an Oscar nomination for greatest worldwide movie of 2021 for his Lunana: A Yak within the Classroom, an gratifying comedy-drama concerning the creation of contemporary know-how within the remotest sections of Bhutan.

The director’s new film additionally focuses on necessary transitions in Bhutan in the course of the mid-2000s, when the king determined to abdicate and introduce elections for the very first time within the nation’s historical past. A part of the movie dramatizes the method of introducing mock elections to show the individuals find out how to vote, which proves to be one thing of a problem, since many native residents stay loyal to the king and reluctant to embrace such a dramatic change. Clearly the filmmaker meant a wryly cynical commentary on individuals’s pure attraction to royalty and authoritarian rule, a theme that continues to be related in lots of components of the world outdoors Bhutan.

The opposite vital a part of the story, as instructed by the title, issues an American customer’s try to accumulate a uncommon Civil Battle-era rifle from an area monk to current to a gun collector again dwelling. The American, performed by Harry Einhorn, is known as Ron Coleman, an in-joke clearly inserted by the director for movie buffs around the globe. In Frank Capra’s 1937 film Misplaced Horizon, the lead character was performed by Ronald Colman. The story of that fashionable fantasy centered across the seek for everlasting life in a magical kingdom known as Shangri-La, excessive within the Himalayas in a fictional nation not in contrast to Bhutan. (Capra’s film was after all shot in Hollywood.)

Dorji’s sly humorousness extends past the identify of the character. The try to accumulate that classic gun proves to be harder than initially suspected. It falls into the palms of one other monk, who’s reluctant to give up it with no cheap trade. Ron and his Bhutanese cohort (Tandin Sonam) lastly handle to barter a commerce if they’ll purchase a few fashionable weapons — particularly AK47s — to current to the monks. Many individuals assume that the worship of those fashionable weapons of destruction is an completely American mania, however the movie shrewdly means that sure demented macho obsessions are extra common than some could notice.

The movie continues with a collection of weird shock reversals that embody a startling non secular ceremony, police intervention, together with the persevering with efforts to coach the members of the group within the artwork of voting. Maybe there are a few pointless problems on the way in which to the denouement, however the storytelling is vigorous and piquant, demonstrating the director’s humorousness and sharp observational abilities.

The entire actors, who embody Tandin Wangchuk (a distinguished singer in Bhutan), Kelsang Choejey (a real-life monk), Deki Lhamo and Pema Zangpo Sherpa, ship persuasive performances. The movie can be superbly made, with putting cinematography of the magnificent Himalayan areas by Jigme Tenzing.

The marginally surreal conclusion, which includes a huge pink phallus utilized in a spiritual ceremony, verifies the director’s comedian imaginative and prescient. This movie is in search of distribution (in addition to a doable follow-up Oscar nomination); it deserves to seek out appreciative audiences.