'The Cup' sees no escape from modernization<\/p>\n
By Hartoyo Pratiknyo<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): In the yard of a remote little Buddhist
\nmonastery of Tibetan refugees in the Himalaya foothills in
\nBhutan, monks in crimson robes are busy playing soccer with an
\nempty Coca-Cola can. Soccer graffiti is scribbled on the
\nmonastery walls and pictures of World Cup soccer stars are
\nplastered on the wall of one the rooms inside the monastery.<\/p>\n
Buddhist monks? Playing soccer? Using a Coca-Cola can? World
\nCup soccer fever in remote Bhutan?<\/p>\n
Correct. The Cup, or Phorpa in the original Tibetan language,
\nwhich has the honor of being chosen to close the Second Jakarta
\nInternational Film Festival (JiFFest) at the Usmar Ismail Film
\nCenter (PPHUI) on Jl. Rasuna Said in South Jakarta on Sunday,
\nNov. 12, is in every sense of the word an extraordinary movie
\nindeed.<\/p>\n
The movie pursues the audacious attempts of one mischievous
\n14-year-old cheeky novice with a big mouth and a heart of gold,
\nnamed Orgyen (Jamyang Lodro), the central figure and the star of
\nthe movie, to win the abbot's permission to install a satellite
\ndish on top of the monastery's roof so that the monks won't have
\nto sneak out during the night to watch the 1998 World Cup soccer
\nfinals. Complications, mostly humorous, abound.<\/p>\n
The film was written and directed by Khyentse Norbu -- more
\nwidely known as H.E. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche -- who is
\nnot only a Tibetan Buddhist monk who lives in Bhutan, but is
\nthought to be the third incarnation of the highly revered 19th
\ncentury Tibetan saint and religious reformer Jamyang Khyentse
\nWangpo. Thirty-nine years of age, he holds the throne at the
\nDzongsat Monastery in Derge in eastern Tibet and is spiritual
\ndirector of two important meditation centers, one in Bhutan and
\nanother one in Sikkim.<\/p>\n
Quite an exalted position and a hard one to match, one might
\nsay, for a screenplay writer and film director. And quite a
\nachievement, too, for a director who didn't even see a movie
\nuntil he was 19 and whose only cinematic education consisted of
\nan apprenticeship under Bernardo Bertolucci during the filming of
\nLittle Buddha.<\/p>\n
The Cup, however, is no Little Buddha. It does not proselytize
\nor extol either Tibet or Buddhism. It isn't anywhere like other
\nfilms about either Tibet or Buddhism that Indonesians have had
\nthe opportunity to see in this country. Take, for example, Martin
\nScorsese's Kundun or Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet.
\nIn all of those, Buddhist monks are always serious and rarely
\nsmile. The Cup, on the contrary, makes us see them as real, young
\npeople who take pleasure in playing pranks on each other.<\/p>\n
All the actors in The Cup are real monks of the Dzongsat
\nMonastery in Derge. Norbu had valid reasons to make it so. First
\nof all there was the consideration of cost. The nearest filming
\nequipment he could afford was in Australia. Another reason, and
\nperhaps the more important one, could be Norbu's regard for the
\nworks of Vittorio de Sica, a pioneer of the Italian neorealist
\nmovement who used light equipment and nonprofessionals to achieve
\nan effect that comes close to that of a documentary film.<\/p>\n
But what is the connection between Buddhism and soccer? \"I'm
\nnot sure this is necessarily the point,\" Norbu says in an
\ninterview he gave in New York. \"I see The Cup as an insider's
\nlook of the touchstones of Tibetan culture and society,
\nespecially now, when they face the insecurities of exile and the
\nchallenges of a modern world. But this isn't just a Tibetan
\nissue. It is something faced by traditional cultures everywhere.\"<\/p>\n
True enough. The Cup may have no profound message to tell us.
\nBut one thing it teaches us, at the very least, is that there is
\nno escaping the advent of modernity or globalization. It is for
\neach nation and each culture to find the way that is most
\nsuitable to it and to adjust itself to life in a global village.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/the-cup-sees-no-escape-from-modernization-1447893297",
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