Unmistaken Child

Before watching this this well-made documentary I had been interested in Buddhism, but now have lost all respect for the Tibetan form.

The film follows a Buddhist priest from village to village and he inquires about likely candidates, examines and tests, looking for "special" traits, until finally he selects one who is clearly advanced in comparison with the others, bright-eyed and intelligent--a precocious toddler whose parents are clearly distressed, as is the child, when he is finally removed from his loving parents to be raised by monks.

Any belief system that promotes the taking of children from perfectly good families is utter barbarism. Such cruelty cannot be defended nor condoned on any level except domination and mind control. How better to subjugate a people than to take the best and brightest of their children and brainwash the public into believing this is for some divine purpose. Such a practice is repugnant to the extreme.

The child's selections of beads and trinkets is proof of nothing but a precocious ability to read queues from the facial expressions and body language of those surrounding him. It was theater staged to subjugate the gullible.

In Unmistaken Child, Baratz paints his viewers a very clear picture of the role faith plays in the lives of modern Tibetan Buddhist "Clergy".

I use the word "paints" above because beauty permeates the film in every aspect; from a deep look into the Eastern culture to the psychosocial intermingling of love, faith and family. Altogether, The film offers an astounding experience.

My only qualm with the film is the lack of a realistic amount of counter "evidence". After some time, I couldn't help thinking that the young costar's behavior was a little too "on point".

To counter this, Baratz does little explaining and opinion stating. Thus, the viewer's cognitive and emotional interaction with the film come quite naturally. Creating his or her own opinion of the scenario, the viewer is engrossed in a wellspring of previously unexplored trails of thought. One begins to see the film, not as evidence of some truth, but as a window peering into the truth of another.

If Eastern culture, spirituality, or real life drama interest you in the least, watch Unmistaken Child ASAP. It is available to stream on the leading online movie rental website :).

Complex. moving, thought provoking and beautifully shot, with a great score.

I struggled a bit philosophically at first while watching, since I've been trained in a more western tradition of Buddhism, and don't take the concept of reincarnation literally. And I had an even harder time seeing a tiny child taken from it's family with no say as to his fate.

But then I realized that the documentary – which is told without narration – isn't taking sides on whether reincarnation is real, whether this child actually is the reincarnation of the former llama (there are some moments that seem to actively raise question, where it looks like the boy may being guided to give the right answers). It's simply displaying a way of life and a tradition that has gone on for hundreds of years. One that includes the cruelty of separating a child and his family, but that has also led to such important figures as the current Dali Llama, who has done so much for world peace.

And, in turn that leads to bigger, important questions about how we raise children. If we never forced children directions against their will at times, we might never have some of our greatest figures in religion, leadership, arts, etc. But in doing so, do we also in some way harm the soul of that child? Where is the line between freedom and tradition?

These are important questions, and the film raises them with skill and grace, without attempting to force an easy answer.

It's also the very emotional journey of the young monk charged with the difficult and uncertain task of finding the reincarnation of the man he loved and served for many years. Whether your beliefs, you can't help but care for this charismatic and vulnerable monk on his physically, emotionally and spiritually challenging journey.

Unmistaken Child documents another world. It is a world where events that seem to be the products of belief are actually experienced. A deceased saint chooses to be reincarnated; his devoted assistant is asked to locate a child whose body is now inhabited by the saint. Worlds of knowledge that most of us call superstition are brought into play. What is most astounding is that everyone involved in this challenge agrees that the mission and the saint himself, in whatever form he appears, are sacred, and that finding and bringing him to recognition is, as the young assistant says, "a thousand times more important" than anything else.

Nati Baratz, the Israeli filmmaker responsible for this amazing movie, started out to make a film about a group of Tibetan Jews. That he was drawn into filming the search for the reincarnated saint and willing to devote over five years of work to that effort is testimony to the power of attraction presented by the monks whose search is documented. That some of the highest spiritual leaders alive today, including the Dalai Lama, allowed Mr. Baratz and his crew to film their intimate meetings and sacred rituals testifies additionally to the deep trust these leaders invested in the filmmaker.

We the audience can only watch, perhaps in disbelief, perhaps in reverence of the devotion to task - both the task of locating the reincarnated saint and the task of filming the arduous search. Nothing is asked of us as we watch events unfold. Detail by detail, everything is revealed in its own time. Baratz patiently shows us another way of being, one that challenges and at the same time embraces our Western logic driven frame of reference.

Is this film evidence that those who hold the great spiritual knowledge of the East are willing at last to share their knowledge with us? Or are we simply being shown the chasm that divides us from that knowledge? Has the time come for humanity to awaken from its eternity of sleep? Or are we simply being shown another cultural reality? These are some of the questions viewers might ponder after seeing Unmistaken Child.

In a year when films that glorify sadistic revenge fantasies and psychopathic violence against women are celebrated, Israeli director Nati Baratz's documentary Unmistaken Child is a tribute to a director and a young Buddhist monk who are willing to share with the world a journey of love. The film concerns twenty-eight year old Tenzin Zopa, a Buddhist monk who left his family at the age of seven to become a disciple of a Tibetan Buddhist master, who then takes on the responsibility of searching for his master's reincarnation when he dies at the age of 84 in 2001. Though Tenzin is devastated when he loses his teacher, Lama Konchog, and feels inadequate to the task ahead, he agrees to search for his master's reincarnation out of a sense of duty to pass on his master's wisdom to the world.

After a senior monk with an astrological gift determines that the child was born in the Tsum Valley of Nepal, and that the boy's father's name begins with "A, Tenzin sets out on foot on a four-year journey to seek the "unmistaken child", not knowing if he will be successful. Accompanied by Baratz and his camera and with permission from the Lama Zopa Rinpoche, he visits villages in the same area in which he grew up, inquiring as to whether families with a child of age one to one and a half years lives in the village. He interviews children, parents, and grandparents, asking many questions and testing each child to try to find out if the young child is unusually attracted to the master's rosary beads.

When he travels to Chekampor Village which was his place of birth, he meets relatives including an aunt who tells him that there may be such a child in the next village whose father's name, is Ahpe. En route to meet this boy, Tenzin comes across Genshe-La's retreat where he first met his spiritual teacher at the age of seven. Saddened by the dilapidated condition of the retreat, Tenzin sheds tears but his spirits are buoyed by the sight of the child who waters the same apple tree daily that was planted many years ago by Konchong and clings to the rosary beads. In a moment that is pure magic, the little boy is brought to a monastery where he is able to identify personal items such as a hand bell and drum that were used by Kongchong.

The most intriguing part of the film, however, is the unfolding of the relationship between Tenzin Zopa culminating with their meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is the only one who can determine whether or not the boy will be accepted as the reincarnation of Lama Konchong. This test is just preliminary however to the crucial meeting between the boy and his parents and it is a test that both Tenzin and the family face with bravery and good humor. Shot in the villages and countryside of Nepal, Unmistaken Child is a film of unexcelled beauty, both physical and spiritual that left me with a glow that lasted for days.