Film Analysis in 10 Slides
Migrating From Happiness: Pawo Choyning Dorji’s LUNANA: A YAK IN THE CLASSROOM (2019)
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Synopsis
A young teacher Ugyen (Sherab Dorji) from Bhutan’s capital Thimpu dreams of quitting his govt job, emigrating to Australia and pursuing a career as a singer there. In the last year of his mandatory service he is posted to Lunana, a remote mountain village. It turns out to be an experience he never imagined.
Stunningly shot by Jigme Tenzing, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom was nominated for Academy award for Best International Film in 2022.
Background
Bhutan has been among the top countries in Happiness Quotient thanks to the practice of living in harmony with nature and retaining traditional values. No wonder the village leader Asha is unable to understand why the educated Ugyen, who can offer so much to the country, is seeking happiness in a foreign land.
Till 2000 Bhutan was cut off from the outside world. Globalization caused social changes in this land of contentment. After the advent of TV and the internet in 2000, the public got exposed to the outside world which became the yardstick. People started migrating from Bhutan, particularly teachers. This trend gave director Dorji the impetus to make Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.
Lunana
Known as Dark Valley due to its backwardness, Lunana is at 4800 meters above sea level. The population of 55 there has rarely gone beyond its village. Till Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom was completed there was no telephone in that village. Nor was there electricity. The film had to be made with a solar battery. It seems that Director Dorji’s idea was to take the protagonist, who sought urban glitter, to a place of the opposite kind: the world’s most remote school.
The village leader Asha believes that it’s only teachers who can touch the future. The people in the village respect Ugyen immensely. But education will make a change to the happiness of their children who are contented despite poverty. They may start believing in material pleasure.
Structure
After his transfer to Lunana to teach in the school there, Ugyen leaves for the village at high altitude reluctantly. His trip is partly by bus followed by a week-long trek. It is an ascent to the summit of happiness which ironically comes with backwardness symbolized by the yak kept in Ugyen’s classroom. The children don’t even know what a car is. They wash their teeth using toothbrush and toothpaste for the first time — which is captured in the film. Ugyen’s yearning for going to Australia is a recurring theme.
Leaving Lunana and migrating to Australia is a descent from happiness despite its better lifestyle. There is a learning for Ugyen between the ascent and the descent which is captured well in Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.
Casting
Since Bhutan doesn’t produce a large number of films, there are not many actors there. Hence Director Dorji cast people who resembled the characters he had in mind. He integrated their personal story with his film.
It seems Sherab Dorji who played Ugyen Dorji was a singer who was waiting for his Australian visa, somewhat like the character he enacted. The children didn’t know what cinema is let alone what acting is or what a camera is. Perhaps that is the reason their performance is natural in Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom. Pem Zam grew up under the care of her grandmother as her father was a drunkard and her mother passed away. Director Dorji added her story to the film.
Yak in the Classroom
Seeing Ugyen going around collecting yak’s dung to use it for starting fires, Saldon, the niece of Asha gifts him with a yak named Norbu, meaning wish fulfilling jewel. In the cold climate the animal has to be kept indoors so Ugyen keeps Norbu inside his classroom. The fact that there is no availability of fuel shows how the village doesn’t even have the basic amenities which is taken for granted in urban areas. It is also very unhygienic to keep the yak in the classroom but Ugyen has no alternative. Director Dorji gives an unvarnished picture of the backwardness of the village in Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.
Yak Lebi Lhadar
A talented singer, Saldon, is shown sitting in the open on top of the hill singing the song Yak Lebi Lhadar. She tells Ugyen that the song was written by somebody whose favorite yak got chosen for slaughter to feed the villagers. Saldon sings it as her offering to all the beings animate as well as inanimate. Ugyen learns from her how to sing it. When he leaves the village, Asha sings Yak Lebi Lhadar for him. Ugyen comes to know that it is Asha who wrote the song.
Snow Lion, Milk in Porcelain Cup
Michen, the villager who accompanies Ugyen on his trek, doesn’t understand global warming as the cause for the shrinking of snow cover of the mountain. He believes in the myth of the snow lion and says that snow and ice are the abode of the snow lion. He is worried that the snow lion will disappear from the earth as less snow each year will mean that snow lion is losing her home.
The song Michen sings, while accompanying Ugyen, is the one he used to sing during the grazing of the cattle. The lines are poetic: “Like milk in a porcelain cup, the heart is pure. So pure that even if the cup breaks, the milk remains milk.”
Closing Thoughts
Ugyen, who goes to Lunana as a teacher, ends up learning there. Director Dorji has resisted satisfying the audience expectation of Ugyen returning to Lunana. The film reflects the general trend and shows Ugyen migrating to Australia. The stay at Lunana helps the city bred Ugyen to get to know the spiritual ethos of his land that contributes to its Happiness Quotient.
Although the characterization is simple minded, there is a degree of complexity in the way the film depicts the backwardness as an irony in the land of happiness. Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom doesn’t break into sentimentality and accepts migration as a fact. Ugyen can carry Lunana with him to Sydney anyway and his spirit will be lifted up by singing Yak Lebi Lhadar there.
