Mantra: Sounds into Silence—at the Rubin Museum of Art

Kirtan music—it’s not just for yoga anymore. Many new listeners still come through the doorway of Bhakti yoga, but the audience for the call-and-response chanting has grown into something bigger and more broadly based. Both listeners and musicians explain what the music means to them in Georgia Wyss’s Mantra: Sounds into Silence (trailer here), co-directed by Wari Om, which has several upcoming screenings at the Rubin Museum of Art, featuring special live kirtan performances.

For most avid listeners, kirtan music helps take them out of themselves and immerses them in a collective music-making experience. For the most part, they identify with the Vedic and Sikh traditions, but Buddhists are also represented. In fact, the most intriguing sequences feature the Venerable Lama Gyurme, the preeminent Tibetan Buddhist teacher in France, as he is accompanied by Jean-Philippe Rykiel, a French jazz musician who has lately adapted himself to world music contexts.

Frankly, we would have preferred to see more forms of experimental cross-pollenated kirtan, such as the hip-hop fusions of MC Yogi and the C.C. White’s aptly named Soulkirtan conception, which is indeed powerfully soulful. The music just seems more alive when it evolves and travels, at least according to our jazz ethos.

Nevertheless, the music is often striking and the scenery is quite picturesque. Yet, one of the most compelling performances is Jai Uttal’s San Quentin concert arranged by the prison’s Buddhist priest, Susan Shannon. Clearly, the music affects the audience deeply, which is all to the good, considering if there is a list of places that could use a greater sense of transcendent peace, San Quentin would surely rank towards the top. You also have to give Uttal (who has worked with Don Cherry and Bill Laswell) credit for tearing up his set, like he was playing to a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden.

We would have enjoyed hearing a little more about the musicians’ influences and creative processes, but we go in for that kind of musical inside-baseball stuff. Regardless, the film is lovely to look at and listen to, while always making an effort to be accessible to a wide spectrum of viewers. Recommended for world music listeners and students of Eastern religion, Mantra: Sounds into Silence screens at the Rubin Museum on 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/21, 3/22, twice on 3/24, and twice on 3/25.

One Mind: Life in Harmony at Zenru Chan Monastery

The isolation of Zenru Chan Monastery on Yunju Mountain in Jiangsi province is good for the soul. It looks like the monk’s quiet way of life has been untouched for centuries, even though the building was indeed damaged by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. They outlasted the madness, just as they will outlast the current regime, not through active defiance, but by seeking enlightenment from within and through nature. Viewers will quietly observe the Zen Buddhist monks and experience the rhythms of their monastic life in Edward A. Burger’s observational documentary One Mind (trailer here), which has three special public screenings at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.

If you really want to appreciate the monastery’s Zen tea, you don’t just sip it. You also help harvest the harvest the leaves. This is one of many ways the Zenru Chan monks stay connected with the earth. The monastery appears self-sufficient to a large extent, which means there are no idle hands. Of course, the whole point of living there is to lose oneself in work and meditation.

Mostly, the monks go about their business without offering any commentary, but one recent arrival having the stumble shorn from his head, explains the practice of head-shaving as a means for monks to renounce and deny their individuality. While we understand the principle, fortunately for us, many of the monks display plenty of personality, often in a cherubically enlightened kind of way, which makes them quite pleasant cinematic company.

One Mind is likely to be compared to In Great Silence and Gurukulam, the documentary following life in a Vedanta Hindu ashram (that also had an early screening at the Rubin). In each film, slow cinema and vérité filmmaking become forms of spiritual pilgrimage. One Mind is also billed as a “Buddhist documentary” rather than a “documentary about Buddhism.” There is definitely something to that, but it applies even more forcefully to the ecstatic ending of Seoungho Cho’s short documentary, Scrumped.

Viewers have reason to assume there is a large transient population at Zenru Chan, who just stay for a short time to restore their connection to nature and temporarily shut out the extraneous distractions of hyper-modernity. Yet, there seems to be a good feeling of fellowship shared by them all. That is part of what makes One Mind an aesthetically rewarding, immersive sensory experience. It is a film to take in with the eyes and ears, thanks to Burger’s own striking cinematography and the evocative natural and ambient noises modulated by sound editor Douglas Quin. Highly recommended for viewers interested in mindfulness and faith-in-practice, One Mind screens this Friday (9/22), the next Friday (9/29), and the following Wednesday (10/4), at the Rubin Museum of Art.

Gurukulam: Teaching Oneness in Southern India

Swami Dyananda Saraswati is exactly the sort of spiritual teacher most seekers hope to study under. He is witty, charismatic, and decidedly beyond worldly concerns. Yet, he functions in our terrestrial realm with quite a high level of competency. It is easy to understand why his Arsha Vidya Gurukulam ashram draws students from around the world for its celebrated five-week course—and he is a major reason why they keep coming back. They might not necessarily attain enlightenment, because that is the sort of thing you never find when you look for it. Nevertheless, the Swami’s diverse students will find some degree of illumination through his words in Jillian Elizabeth & Neil Dalal’s Gurukulam (trailer here), which fittingly screens this weekend at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea.

Advaita Vedanta is the oldest school of Vedanta, the Hinduist philosophical tradition to which J.D. Salinger subscribed to sometime after the publication of Catcher in the Rye. Frankly, Salinger was far more of a hermit or Stylite than the Swami ever was. Despite renouncing the world, he is quite sociable and gregarious. Clearly, enlightenment will not begrudge a little friendly conversation.

For obvious reasons, those most interest in Vedic and Hindu religious thought will get considerably more out the documentary than comparatively casual viewers. However, it is still rather intriguing as a work of non-fiction filmmaking. At various points, Elizabeth and Dalal essentially present the audience with a choice. They can either join in Swami Dyananda’s meditation and visualization exercises, or they can remain spectators. They are both valid choices, but you have to choose.

Of course, much of Gurukulam is devoted to quiet observation, but it is never as hushed as Into Great Silence (a not terrible comparative film). There is always plenty of life going on at the Arsha Vidya. In fact, even to shallow agnostics, it looks quite livable for an ashram nestled in the rainforests of southern India.

Indeed, this is an unusually transporting film, submerging viewers in the sights and ambient sounds of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam and its surrounding environs. Serving as cinematographer, documentarian J.P. Sniadecki (whose are films are screening throughout Manhattan this week) has a keen eye both for the big, symbolically loaded Samsara-esque shots, as well as the smaller, lighter moments of bonhomie.

Gurukulam will probably not inspire scores of new Vedic adherents to flock to the Swami’s ashram, but that means all of us unabashed materialists can feel safe watching it. It will definitely take you someplace you have never been before. Once there, Elizabeth, Dalal, and editor Mary Lampson show a shrewd editorial judgment focusing on telling details. It is a finely crafted film under any circumstances, but there will be no better venue to see it amongst a knowledgeable and sympathetic audience than the Rubin Museum. Recommended for those who enjoy meditative and immersive documentaries, Gurukulam screens this Saturday (8/22), Sunday (8/23), and Monday (8/24) at the Rubin Museum of Art.

Hamlet Reincarnated: The Prince of the Himalayas

Shakespeare famously wrote in As You Like It: “all the world’s a stage.” That includes the “Roof of the World” as well. In an act of sheer cinematic bravura, Sherwood Hu moves the Danish tragedy to the high Tibetan mountains, taking invigorating liberties with the Shakespeare play in the process. Appropriately, Hu’s The Prince of the Himalayas (trailer here), will have its premiere American theatrical engagement exclusively at the Rubin Museum of Art (home to the largest collection of Himalayan art in the West and some of the City’s finest film and jazz programming), starting this Friday.

Returning from his studies in Persia, Prince Lhamoklodan is distressed to learn he just missed his father’s funeral. He is also put-off by the news his uncle Kulo-ngam will become the crown-regent by marrying his mother Namn. Indeed, one ceremony closely follows the other, as his school chum Horshu observes. However, it is the ghost of his father who confirms Lhamoklodan's suspicions, setting him on a bloody course of vengeance.

So far, so Shakespearean. Yet, Hu has several surprises in store for viewers, most notably his decision to make the Himalayan Gertrude and especially its Claudius, the sympathetic core of the film. We learn rather early Kulo-ngam always loved Namn, but his not so dearly departed older brother cruelly intervened. As a result, Lhamoklodan comes across as one of the harsher, more spiteful Hamlets ever seen on-screen. Conversely, the ethereally beautiful Osaluyang is one of the most heartbreaking Ophelias. She also reaches rare heights of madness in a role often required to discretely slip into the water off-screen or off-stage in many conventional productions.

Borrowing elements from Macbeth and Sophocles, Hu’s adaptation of Shakespeare is inspired, but hardly slavish in its faithfulness. Yet, he arguably remains true to the spirit of the original play (nevertheless, you probably would not want to argue the point with Harold Bloom). Without question though, the Tibetan mountains and tundra must be the grandest, most expansive setting for any staging of Hamlet. If there is any misstep in the Himalayan Prince, it is that of over-scoring. The vast spaces of the Jiabo kingdom call out for eerie silence rather than prestige picture orchestrations.

Hu is a bold, slightly reckless filmmaker, who gets some powerful performances from his cast. Purba Rgyal is appropriately fierce and charismatic as Lhamoklodan, but Dobrgyal gives the film its soul as the acutely conflicted Kulo-ngam. His scenes with Zomskyid’s Namn/Gertrude are achingly touching, as is the exquisitely vulnerable performance of Sonamdolgar as Odsaluyang.

While Hu’s Prince often rather abruptly segues from scene to scene, his breakneck pacing wraps up Shakespeare’s longest play in an impressively economical 108 minutes. Purists might take issue with his alterations to the time honored tale (alas, poor Yorick did not make the cut). However, it is worth noting Kurosawa’s masterpiece Throne of Blood yielded probably the greatest death scene in motion picture history by revising the ending of Macbeth.

Granted, Hu’s Prince is not quite at that level, but not for a lack of ambition and vision. Indeed, it is a richly produced period piece, considerably superior to most of the supposed Oscar bait coyly dropping in and out of theaters over the next two weeks. Grand in scope and enormously satisfying, it is highly recommended when it screens at the Rubin Museum in New York over the course of ten non-sequential days, beginning the Friday (12/23) through Saturday, January 14th. Check their website for specific dates and times, as well as information about their world-class exhibits.

Crazy Wisdom: Tibetan Buddhism in a Business Suit

Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche was a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who embraced the 1960’s counterculture, but could not abide rock & roll. He drank considerably more than he should have, openly and often, but he had no use for drugs. A former monk, Trungpa renounced his robes, developing ways to teach Tibetan Buddhism in the western vernacular. A study in paradoxes, Trungpa all too brief life avoided cliché, making him a rich documentary subject in Johanna Demetrakas’ Crazy Wisdom: the Life and Times of Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York at the Rubin Museum of Art.

A recognized reincarnation, Trungpa was the last of his generation to be entirely educated in Tibet. After the Chinese Communists invaded in 1959, he took a leading role securing the teachings and documents of his faith, personally guiding a group of his fellow monks to safety in India. Living in exile, Trungpa chose to embrace the west, trading his robes for a business suit. It was the start of a transformation that was decidedly controversial with his elders.

Living in Scotland, Trungpa married a young British woman and began teaching Tibetan Buddhism to hippies. For obvious reasons, they were attracted to his “crazy wisdom,” a recognized approach to enlightenment celebrating the eccentric and unconventional, sort of the rough Tibetan Buddhist analog to drunken master martial arts. However, Trungpa liked to keep people guessing.

As one of his students recalls, at the height of the anti-war movement, Trungpa was once asked to comment about aggression in America, to which he replied “I want to talk about the aggression in this room.” Ouch. He was also evidently a stickler for the Queen’s English, perhaps giving scores of hippies their first elocution lessons. However, the greatest irony must have been the Dorje Kasung, the military drill team he established at Naropa University, the American Buddhist school Trungpa founded in Boulder, Colorado.

Clearly, the Ripoche was more responsible than anyone for creating a network of schools and support centers for Tibetan Buddhism, through direct action and the subsequent contributions of his students. Still, he is a devilishly difficult figure to grab hold of. In fact, his wife, Diana Mukpo, readily admits on-camera the inner Trungpa largely remains a mystery to her. He clearly touched a lot of lives, but it is just as obvious he rarely denied himself a good time. With many students-turned-lovers sharing their reminiscences, it is evident he enjoyed the company of women and a good drink. This complicates the beatification process, but it makes for fascinating viewing.

Frankly, the audience will not feel like they know the Rinpoche any better than Mukpo. Yet, he led a short but eventful life, emerging as an intriguing Rorschach for those around him. Featuring better than average graphics and revealing interviews with intimates like Mukpo and his first son, Sakyong Mipham, Rinpoche, the head of Shambhala International, as well “celebrity” admirers such as Allen Ginsburg and Ram Dass, Crazy covers the traditional documentary bases quite well. Yet, it best lives up to Trungpa’s example by constantly confounding viewer expectations of who and what the Rinpoche should have been. A surprisingly challenging documentary profile, Crazy is definitely recommended when it fittingly opens this Friday (11/25) at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York’s home for Himalayan art and culture (not to mention fine jazz and film programming).

Brainwave 2011: The Edge of Dreaming

It sounds like a good premise for a horror movie, but it is actually the basis for a very personal documentary. After dreaming of the death of her family’s beloved horse George, Amy Hardie awoke to discover he really had passed away in such manner. Shortly thereafter, she had a prophetic dream warning her she would die when she was forty-eight, mere days before her forty-eighth birthday. Major bummer. Understandably, this spurred an intense interest in the nature of dreams that precipitated Hardie’s impressionistic documentary The Edge of Dreaming (trailer here), which launches its New York theatrical run this coming Wednesday as part of the Rubin Museum of Art’s new Brainwave 2011 programming series.

At nearly forty-eight, the Scottish Hardie has much to live for. Happily married with three children (one from a previous marriage), Hardie had a successful (or at least busy) career making scientific films. She was not exactly the woo-woo type. Yet, when her late ex-husband appeared in a dream to warn of her impending mortality, it disconcerted Hardie, especially since she had already witnessed poor George’s passing in a similar nocturnal vision. Naturally, as a filmmaker, she set about documenting what might be her final year on Earth. Despite the spookiness of it all, the Hardie and her family go on with their lives, until she is stricken with a degenerative lung condition, seemingly on-cue.

While there is a certain amount of New Aginess (a Brazilian shaman turns up for the third act), Edge’s Jungian underpinnings take the film in some interesting directions. Hardie’s husband and children are also smarter and more engaging than the documentary-industry standard. Frankly, considering how much of their private lives Hardie filmed (or later recreated), one wonders if their patience had no limits.

Nicely constructed, primary editor Ling Lee poetically assembled Hardie’s disparate visuals, while Jim Sutherland’s underscoring themes are evocative, yet soothing. Though the director-DIY cinematographer has a keen sense of imagery, there are far too many scenes of pens scribbling deep thoughts on the pages of Hardie’s journal and the like, adding extraneous padding to the film.

If Edge sounds vaguely familiar, perhaps you are a regular viewer of PBS’s POV, which recently broadcasted Hardie’s film during its 2010 season. While the timing of its New York theatrical run is a bit unconventional, it certainly fits the Rubin’s Brainwave programming theme. In fact, the Learning Access style dreaming workshops Hardie will lead at the Rubin in conjunction with the screenings will probably be of greater interest to Edge’s target audience. (However, the mere fact that they are happening constitutes a rather obvious spoiler for the film.) Sharper and more artful than typical documentary excursions into the mystical, Edge will still be best appreciated by viewers who own at least one dream dictionary. It screens at the Rubin on February 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 23rd, and 26th.

Existential Nothingness: The Sound of Insects

A well fed corpse decays quickly. Ironically, when an anonymous suicide sets out to slowly starve himself into nothingness, his lean, dehydrated body is nicely preserved through natural mummification. It is an unfathomable way to go, agonizingly conveyed in Swiss director Peter Liechti’s cinematic essay, The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy (trailer here), which had its American theatrical premiere last night in New York at the Rubin Museum of Art.

Whoever the nameless starvation artist was, he was not missed. Though based on a Japanese novel by Shimada Masahiko, which in turn was based on real life incident, Sound is not a dramatic adaptation, per se. Rather it is an impressionistic representation of person X’s final sixty-two days, through evocative natural imagery and voice-over narration of his deathwatch diary (which comes in both English and German variations). Even in that final testament, he offers no clues to his identity or back-story, but graphically details his extreme physical deterioration.

Clearly, Sound is not a film for mass audiences, but it fits nicely with the Rubin’s current programming focus on Buddhist concepts of an all encompassing totality often translated as nothingness. Its Japanese lineage should also appeal to patrons of the Tibetan art museum, even though Liechti shifts the setting to Austria (a move that makes no practical difference, aside from some faceless crowd scenes). X also makes the occasional reference to the Buddha, but is more preoccupied with western death motifs, such as the River Styx, at least according to Masahiko’s text, as adapted by Liechti.

Though grim, there is a certain existential poetry to X’s journal for about the first fifty days or so. Unfortunately, the final two weeks become something of a forced march, with X’s writings primarily restating the “why is this taking so agonizingly long” theme. Aside from the inelegant looking digital opening, Liechti creates some striking collages, mixing POV scenes from the site of the deed, with murky archival film footage, much in the style of experimental filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt. Indeed, had the overlong Sound’s running time been roughly equivalent to that of Rosenblatt’s long shorts, it would have better maintained its macabre lyricism.

While Sound is not a documentary, it has won European documentary awards. Essentially, it is experimental filmmaking with literary credentials. To say it is not for all tastes would be a crushing understatement. Indeed, Liechti’s integrity of vision engenders great respect, but also taxes the patience. Still, it is an interesting example of the Rubin’s ambitious programming, which includes first-run film screenings like Sound and Journey from Zanskar, Frederick Marx’s excellent documentary about the efforts of the indomitable Tibetan Buddhist monk Geshe Lobsang Yonten to bring a small group of geographically isolated children to the nearest Tibetan school. The endearing spirit and fundamental goodness of the Zanskar students really stays with you after viewing the film, so to support the Geshe’s efforts go here. Sound continues its debut engagement at the Rubin with nine further screenings on December 26th, 29th, January 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 9th.

At the Rubin: Journey from Zanskar

The geography of Zanskar is decidedly harsh. While physically cold and arid, its position as a minority Buddhist enclave amid the tinder box of Kashmir is politically and culturally precarious. As a result, the needs of Zanskaris, particularly the education of their children, have not exactly been a high priority for either the national or local Indian authorities. Facing nearly uniform illiteracy in Zanskar and the potential extinction of the Tibetan language, two monks led a group of Zanskari children to distant Manali, where a place in school and hope for a better life awaited them. Their arduous trek is documented by Frederick Marx in Journey from Zanskar: a Monk’s Vow to Children (trailer here), which screens this month at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea.

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, “Geshe” is an honorific bestowed on the completion of an advanced course of academic studies. As a Geshe originally from Zanskar, Geshe Lobsang Yonten keenly understood the value education and was alarmed by the lack of opportunities for children in his native region. Identifying Zanskar’s most promising children, the Geshe and his order arrange places for them at a school in Manali, where they will be taught both Tibetan and western academic curriculum. However, getting there will be a trick.

The eastern route is considered the most dangerous, due to the Muslim extremists who frequently murder Buddhists on the roads near Pakistan. The western route might be safer, but it leaves them more beholden to the elements. The direct route would take the monks, their young charges, and the accompanying parents over a series of mountains passes, by foot, in frigid temperatures and altitudes reaching 17,000 feet. They chose the latter (and according to Marx during post-screening Q&A, it almost killed him).

The most striking aspect of Journey is the charisma of its subjects. Though the trip wears on the Geshe as well, he exudes indomitable charm and remarkable optimism throughout their odyssey. Likewise, the kids all seem to have smiles that could light up any room. Their spirit is best represented by a scene late in the picture, when one boy tasting his first sample of nuts, reaches over to share with Marx.

Journey might be somewhat manipulative, but it absolutely works. Audiences will definitely root for these kids and feel for their parents, who essentially must give them up for years, in order for them to have better opportunities in life. Marx, best known as one of the filmmakers of Hoop Dreams, also deserves credit as a documentarian (along with primary cinematographer Nick Sherman), both for enduring the elements and exhaustion for the sake of the film, as well as for scrupulously keeping himself out of the picture, instead focusing exclusively on the monks and the children.

Watching Journey, it is clear these are good kids who deserve a better life. Viewers who want to help the monks’ efforts to build a school in Zanskar should visit www.SaveZanskar.com. A surprisingly moving film, Journey plays again at the Rubin today (5/9), next week on Friday (5/14), Saturday (5/15), and Sunday (5/16), and the following Wednesdays (5/19) and (5/26).

Come for the Dalai Lama, Stay for Genghis Khan

The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama recently opened at The Rubin Museum of Art in Clesea. Unfortunately, the Chinese will not be able to read a review of the exhibition here, because this site is now being blocked. (That was fast.) What you will see if you go to the Rubin is an uneven exhibit that takes far too much thematic latitude.

If you are expected a great deal of Dalai Lama portraiture, you might be disappointed. There is certainly some, and frankly it represents the best of the show. Chase Bailey’s “Evolution into a Manifestation” uses bold colors in its modernistic depiction. Some “portraits” were more cerebral, like Ken Aptekar’s “I Saw the Figure Five in Gold,” a cool “reincarnation” of Charles Demuth famous numeral painting of William Carlos Williams. There were some representations that were just weird like Sylvie Fleury’s “Kirlian” aura photography, produced from an old pair of his Holiness’ shoes. Even the Dalai Lama himself may have found that a little out there, as the exhibit card notes, when informed of the work: “he chuckled and noted that the shoes had been resoled several times and that the resulting aura might well be that of his cobbler.”

The work included for addressing themes related to the Dalai Lama, filed under headings like Tibet, Belief Systems, Humanity in Transition, and Empathy & Compassion, tended to be a mixed bag. Of course there is a predictably clichéd anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War piece from Tom Nakashima. There is a powerful take on Mao’s barbarism from Tenzing Rigdol titled “Brief History of Tibet,” which depicts the Chairman’s two-faced nature: the placid public mask and “the artist’s perception of Mao’s actual face, wrathful and demonic.” Of course the piece is labeled anti-war, rather than anti-Communist.

There is a virtual tour available, corresponding to the California leg of the traveling exhibit. It does not match the Rubin’s lay out, on the fourth, fifth, and basement levels of the museum. If you do go (free admission after 7:00 Fri.) definitely check out Mongolia: Beyond Chinggis Khan, which offers a somewhat revisionist look at the Mongol leader better known as Genghis.

The exhibit signage makes a compelling case for Khan, as someone who abolished torture, established religious freedom, and repealed taxes for doctors, clergy, and teachers. Whenever he expanded his rule to new lands it seemed a cultural renaissance followed shortly thereafter. Of course during Soviet control of Mongolia, the Communists launched a propaganda campaign against Khan, a Mongol national hero who represented a symbolic threat to their misrule. In 1962 they flip-flopped on their anti-Khan campaign, presumably trying to co-opt his national prestige. The exhibit includes relatively recent photos of Mongolia, including one of a 1962 monument to Khan the Communists built to mark the presumed 800th anniversary of his birth. Now the Communists are gone and the Mongolians openly celebrate Khan.

It seems perverse that in the west, we have largely accepted the attacks against Khan by the Communists and Middle Eastern states that have held a historical grudge against him. He was even portrayed by John Wayne in The Conqueror (1956), which should be enough street cred for any great historical figure.