Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom

This movie was filmed on location. That doesn’t sound impressive until you learn that the location is one of the remotest villages in the world, requires an eight-day trek to reach, doesn’t have electricity or running water and has a population of roughly 50.

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is a stunning work of cinematography and story-telling by director, Pawo Choyning Dorji. It was deservingly nominated for Best International Feature in this year’s Oscars. Set in the tiny village of Lunana, high up in the Himalayan Alps of Bhutan, it tells the story of Ugyen, a young teacher on the verge of completing his mandatory five-year government service, after which he intends to head to Australia and launch a singing career.

His blatant apathy towards teaching angers his superiors who punish him – or perhaps try to inspire him – by sending him to Lunana. Utterly resentful, he petulantly hikes the gruelling eight-day journey with two persistently optimistic villagers, all the while with headphones. The entire village comes down to meet and escort him for the final two hours of the trek, but it still doesn’t melt his icy resistance.

It is only once he meets the children and starts teaching, that the thaw finally starts to set in and he finds his humanity.

The villagers, including all the children, play themselves in the film, despite the fact that none of them has ever actually seen a movie before. Pem Zam, the 9-year old school captain, has big soulful eyes and a smile like tinsel, and steals every scene she’s in.

This is a truly gorgeous film, both in terms of the extraordinary landscape and the emotional topography it captures.

✭✭✭✭

In select cinemas nationally from 2 June

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