Movies - Travellers and Magicians

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	Movies - Travellers and Magicians

Travellers and Magicians (Dzongkha: ཆང་ཧུབ་ཐེངས་གཅིག་གི་འཁྲུལ་སྣང) is a 2003 film written and directed by Khyentse Norbu, a reincarnate lama also known as Dzongar Khyentse Rinpoche. The movie is the first feature film shot entirely in the kingdom of Bhutan. The majority of the cast are not professional actors; Dandup, a well-known Bhutanese radio actor and producer, is the exception. The movie breaks ground as the first to to take a Himalayan Buddhist perspective, offering a unique insight into this culture from the inside.

Tagline: The bitter and the sweet of temporary things.

Plot

A young government official named Dondup (played by Tsewang Dandup) dreams of escaping to America while stuck in a ravishingly beautiful but isolated village in eastern Bhutan. When his chance arrives, he immediately strikes out for Thimphu, the capital, where he hopes to connect with a visa out of the country. He misses the one bus out of town, however, and is forced to hitchhike and walk along the lonely Lateral Road to the west, accompanied by an elderly apple seller, a buddhist monk, a windowed villager and the villager's beautiful daughter Sonam (played by Sonam Lhamo).

To pass the time along their shared journey the monk tells the tale of Tashi, a restless farmboy who like Dondup dreams of escaping village life. In the tale Tashi escapes, but immediately becomes lost in remote mountains and finds his life entwined with that of a menacing hermit woodcutter and his beautiful young wife. Tashi's wish of escape granted, he finds himself caught in a web of lust and jealousy, enchanted by the beautiful and yielding wife, but fearing the woodsman and his axe.

Indeed, the monk's tale holds up a mirror to the restless Dondup and the attraction he seeks Dondup has for the innocent Sonam. Like Tashi, Dondup is faced with a choice of escaping or staying. The film ends with an ambiguity, leaving the viewer to ponder what happens and what should happen.

In making this film, Khyentse Rimpoche, an internationally-renowned Buddhist lama, sets the standard for the nascient Bhutanese film industry, challenging future Bhutanese film makers to capture what is unique to Bhutan rather than imitate the outside world. Accordingly, Travellers and Magicians is a profoundly Bhutanese film, with an internal logic and vocabulary that reflects the culture of Bhutan, abandoning the marketing formulas of mainstream Hollywood and Bollywood moviemaking.

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