"The Unmistaken Child" (link) shows how a disciple of the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Zopa, searches for, finds and nurtures (becoming a new father for) the reincarnation of Lama Konchog. Zopa, an agile man of about 40 but whose agility and ascetic leanness makes him pass for mid twenties, talks about how being a monk was his calling, and how his parents wanted him to marry and have children. The intimacy that follows when he meets the boy in a hovel in the Tsum Valley (on the Nepal-Tibet border) may seem offputting even as Zopa becomes a substitute father figure (the lamas tell Zopa that the boy must be "kept clean"; in one scene, Zopa shaves the boy’s head as the boys resists), but the progress of the boy is remarkable. Although the cries like a toddler, Zopa somehow knows who he is, perhaps from the boys unusual problem solving ability as he demonstrates with his own toys. The parents give up the boy with unusual willingness, and the boy grows into his role as a boy “king” with amazing cognition, perhaps from the "essence" of his past adult lives -- that's as close as the film comes to really presenting "reincarnation". It seems in retrospect that Zopa has unbelievable “power” from the way he lives his life; he has become “the power behind the throne” with his “talent” for picking out the next “king” if he is not quite that himself. The paradigm translates well into my own life.
The film takes place in Buddhist sites and monasteries from southern India to Nepal, inasmuch as the Dalai Lama is in exile from Tibet itself. The view of the lifestyle is amazing.
The film played to an almost full house at the Landmark E Street theater in Washington DC July 11 at the early evening show.
The film (102 minutes) is directed by Nati Baratz, distributed by Oscilloscope Pictures, and used production companies in France, Britain, Germany and Israel.
Picture: From folklife festival, Washington Mall, Bhutan exhibit, 2008
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