| THE CUP Director: Khyentse Norbu "Growing up in a monastary, I've noticd, somehow, that monks everywhere are obsessed with football. I guess there's something similar between religion and a football match. Everyone thinks monks are pious and disciplined. But they forget that monks are human too. The monastic code is an ideal, a goal to be hit." Khyentse Norbu Orgyen (Jamyang Lodro) is a mischievous 12-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk who passes notes during meditation rituals, makes fun of an old soothsayer in the village and often bullies the other kids around. He’s an energetic kid with attitude and clearly is not the model of Buddhist teaching. Rather than his focus being on the daily rigors of the monastery he tries to get the latest info that he can get on World Cup Soccer matches. The Cup is about how the Western world is slowly creeping into the Tibetan monasteries and changing the daily routines: In this case via the sport of Soccer. It’s 1998 and The World Cup has captured the imaginations of fans all over the world including a few young monks in a monastery located in the Himalayan foothills of India – where many monks live in exile. Each night a couple of younger monks, led by Orgyen, sneak off into the night to the local pub to catch the game. They are found out and punished but so determined to watch the final game that they convince their leader to allow them to rent a television and a satellite dish from a local businessman. The world of the Tibetan monks is shown as being still pretty much closed off from the things we take for granted here in the West. Like watching television, going out to kick around a soccer ball or stealing a glance at a half-nude model in a Western magazine whenever you feel like it.. Outside of their daily routines of worship these are small but rare pleasures. The plight of the Tibetans – whose country has been brutally occupied by China since the 1950’s – is pretty well known in the West and has been portrayed pretty well in many other movies including Martin Scorsese’s Kundun. The Cup -- although not ostensibly about politics -- is one of the better films on the Tibetan way of life because it isn’t too reverential or stodgy. It tries to get at human emotions and truths and it’s refreshing to see Buddhist characters that aren’t just laconic monks dogmatically following rituals. This is the first feature by Bhutanese filmmaker Khyentse Norbu himself an incarnate Buddhist lama who is attempting, through his filmmaking, to bridge the gap between the East and the West. He learned filmmaking through an apprenticeship he had with Bernardo Bertolucci on the set of Little Buddha. The film is an accomplishment yet it doesn’t always feel convincing. For instance, the head lama of the monastery (Lama Chonjor) is totally unaware of soccer. He concludes that it is just “two civilized nations fighting over a ball.” This provides for a good laugh although in this day and age it seems highly unlikely anyone anywhere would be ignorant of soccer is.The film has a moral running through concerning Orgyen and his brash attitude toward other people’s possessions. At one point he hawks the new boy's family heirloom watch to get enough money to rent the television. Suddenly, he feels guilty about his actions and can’t enjoy the game because he wants to find a way to buy it back. Which, of course, is a problem since monks don’t carry much money. It provides a little bit of suspense, presents a moral message and opens up to a bigger message – which plays itself out pretty nicely — about the responsibility of the community and the responsibility of its leaders. - Matt Langdon |