Review
WORDS OF MY PERFECT TEACHER
Directed by Lesley Ann Patten
Wednesday, March 31
Murray Fraser Hall, Room 162 (U of C)
"If he’s an enlightened being, then why doesn’t he fucking act like an enlightened being?"
This momentary loss of composure by Luke, a Canadian student of a revered teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, is a thumbnail summary of the impetus behind director Lesley Ann Patten’s Words of My Perfect Teacher. When not actually blurted out, it constitutes the main question on the minds of Patten and two other students of Dzongsar Khyentse Norbu Rinpoche, one of the most important lamas in contemporary Buddhism. Norbu, as he’s known, fled with his family to Bhutan when China invaded Tibet and, from there, set up a number of teaching centres around the world. He keeps a packed schedule of touring and lecturing, when he’s not providing spiritual succour to the people of Bhutan.
As Patten points out in her bemused narration, Tibetan Buddhism posits no saviour – when it comes to walking the road to enlightenment, you’re decidedly on your own. So part of Norbu’s apparent responsibility as a teacher is to continually test, question and deflect his students, to avert his own idolization and keep them looking within for the relief of their spiritual longings. Luckily it seems to come quite easily to him to deflect and confuse his students, and Patten keeps a camera handy to try to make sense out of Norbu’s mischieviousness and detachment. Along with Luke (a giddy Canadian computer genius) and Louise (a flaky British Tarot reader), two of the students who have somehow insinuated themselves into Norbu’s personal life, Patten chases the lama from the streets of London to a World Cup match in Germany and all the way to Bhutan. Time and again he frustrates their efforts to be around him by leaping off moving buses, disappearing at airports and changing the plans he had encouraged them to make without a word of apology.
Visually the film is striking and varied. Patten is a seasoned documentarian and her crew is expert at taking in all the details of the disparate worlds we see her travel through, capturing Norbu in his robes and battered fedora as he walks through mobs of soccer hooligans or recording the exacting religious observances of adherents in Bhutan. Since the film is as much a personal essay as a documentary, the indulgence in colour and movement imparts a liveliness to the flow of ideas that is a serious part of its entertainment value.
Since much of the film was shot around the time of the World Trade Centre attacks, the insecurity and fear following those events are also reflected in the film, but not entirely coherently. Patten seems to be exploring some notion related to the nature of discipleship and devotion – not to mention pain and fear – but how it fits in with what she’s trying to say about her relationship with her own teacher isn’t entirely clear.
Words of My Perfect Teacher brings together so many diverse and beguiling ideas, fused with some very memorable images – and a drecky worldbeat soundtrack – that the clarity of its thesis isn’t the total point of the film. At worst, it’s the audiovisual diary of someone trying to come to grips with her spirituality against a backdrop of everyday suffering and doubt. And, as with any journey, the trip itself is as compelling as the destination.
Words of My Perfect Teacher is part of the Movies That Matter series. |
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