The Kingdom of Bhutan, on the south-eastern slopes of the Himalayas, has a certain reputation as a land of happiness. Progress there is calculated in a different way than with the bare figures of a gross domestic product. Unclimbed mountains and uncut forests are included in the calculation, and bank balances (where there is an account) are less important than a state of contentment, for which there are no real tables.
The myth of happiness in Bhutan has long since taken on a life of its own, and since people in even remote villages have installed Tiktok on their phones, the special character of the community is at stake.
So it’s time for a little inventory, which is best left not to the Central Statistical Office, but to an artistic soul. The film “What does the Lama want with the gun?” by Pawo Choyning Dorji tells of an incident from 2006 that can be seen as an indicator of modernization in every respect. At that time, democracy was introduced in Bhutan, on orders from the very top. The king himself wanted to transform himself from an absolute monarch into a constitutional monarch. But in order to fill a chamber with representatives of the people, the people first had to practice a little.
No word for narrative
For this test run with fictitious parties, an election worker is sent to the province to ensure that the voter turnout is as high as possible. This is not an easy undertaking, because people do not immediately understand what they are supposed to gain from voting. But there are also people who adapt quickly to the new circumstances. Those who are more likely to be interested in running for office are those who are in charge in the local community and who are relatively wealthy. So wealthy that a simple television set is quite acceptable as an election gift.
In his culture, there is no word for narrative, director Pawo Choyning Dorji has occasionally said in interviews. The corresponding term could best be translated as “untying a knot”. In the language of international scriptwriting, one would speak of a dramaturgy of multiple plot threads. In “What does the Lama want with the gun?” we get to know various people from Bhutan. In addition to the election worker Tshomo, there is also the young Benji, who works as a driver and translator for an American.
He is looking for weapons in Bhutan, which is no easy undertaking, but there were wars with Tibet in the past and there are supposed to be some firearms from that time still in circulation somewhere. When one is found, it turns out to be valuable. Not in the sense of its original purpose, but as a collector’s item. It dates back to the American Civil War. Habent sua fata . . .
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While Mr. Coleman is being driven around without much understanding of the cultural circumstances, another man is looking for a weapon: the monk Tashi has been commissioned by his master to get one. This lama has actually planned a two-year meditation, but he is now interrupting it without explaining in detail what he is planning. Did he perhaps somehow find out that a film with James Bond was shown on television and that the British secret agent’s legendary arsenal of weapons also made an impression in Bhutan? The term monopoly on violence has a slightly different meaning in this country than elsewhere, because violence is generally hardly recorded to any significant extent. But conflicts, tensions and injuries also exist in Buddhist-dominated Bhutan, as Dorji makes clear with the figure of Benji’s wife. Or with the father of the student Yuphel, who is deeply entangled in the loyalty and envy relationships of his village community.
Pawo Choyning Dorji single-handedly helped his home country of Bhutan to become a national cinema. In 2019, he became known with “Lunana”, the story of a young teacher who is sent to what is said to be the most remote school in the world and discovers a love of traditional songs there. It was the study of Buddhism, of all things, that led Dorji to the cinema.
Monks and football
His master had already made a film that became an international success. In “Game of the Gods” the susceptibility of Buddhist monks to football is taken to task with a wink. Dorji now moves with similar aplomb in an area that combines the specific culture of Bhutan with the structures of world cinema. Production companies from the USA and several countries in Southeast Asia are involved in “The Monk and the Gun” (the international distribution title of “What does the Lama want with the gun?”).
Dorji has already performed at numerous festivals with “Lunana”, where diversity has long been a central principle. And if people previously only knew about Bhutan through a relatively popular Austrian documentary film (“What Happiness Is” by Harald Friedl) or through occasional television or newspaper reports, the country now has a chronicler with a keen sense of the pitfalls of modernization processes. Perhaps the best punch line of Dorji’s film comes from the fact that he takes the symbolic power of firearms as phallic symbols more or less literally. “What does the Lama want with the gun?” also plays with an image memory that has always seen indigenous peoples as resisting dominance and exploitation. What the Lama actually wants with the gun is resolved not least in a ritual that could just as easily bring to mind North American natives as the shamans of a prankster like Werner Herzog. A paradoxical intervention, but one that leads to the heart of Buddhist thought.
There are no paradises left in this world, and Bhutan is no exception. The magnificent landscape against which Dorji spins his plot does not change that. While an old box and a wooden lingam are carried around, an even more subtle gag develops: the student Yuphel, the future figure for Bhutan, asks her father for an eraser, then gets one from someone else, and finally gives it up.
The simple utensil, which for a long time was part of the basic equipment of school children, is the object symbol for the revisability of learning processes. If you write something wrong, you erase it and write something new over it. Pawo Choyning Dorji tells of the learning processes of a peaceful country that is confronted with phenomena that cannot be prayed away even with a thousand years of meditation. But he testifies with his humor: We can continue to imagine Bhutan as blessed with luck.
