OTT: Paying homage to yaks in Bhutan; Puneeth's last film & vengeful mothers

This is the kind of movie that needs to be savoured slowly. It’s too early to say but it will probably be films like this one that will continue to sustain OTT in the backdrop of cinema theatres making a big comeback. Bhutanese film Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, which started streaming on Amazon Prime Video from Friday, tells the delightful, quaint, off-the-beaten track story of a city-bred young teacher, who is transferred by the government to a remote village situated at 11,000 ft above sea-level.

Harbouring a dream to migrate to Australia and to become a singer, the protagonist Ugyan Dorji (played by Sherab Dorji) has no desire to teach, let alone trek off to an isolated spot filled with yak herders. He tries to beg off the assignment saying he has altitude sickness, but the lady in command at the government centre ticks him off: “You don’t have altitude sickness but an attitude problem.” And he has no option but to head to the mountains.

It is a five-day long journey by foot to reach the inaccessible village with night stops out in the open, and Dorji struggles to walk. And, when he reaches Lunana, he wants to just head back to Thimphu. But how he comes to settle down in the village, with its lush green plains and hills against picturesque mountain peaks, and realise the value of the people living there and their traditions make up the rest of the film.

No romcom this

No, he doesn’t fall in love with the pretty woman Saldon, who sings so beautifully and teaches him the yak song, which is an offering to the spirits, to the mountains, to all the living things in the world, including the animals. It is not that kind of a movie, it is just a story about Dorji’s awakening to the beauty of nature, an ode to all that is innocent and pure.

The people of Lunana, which happen to total just 50, are cut off from the rest of the world. They live simple lives, and shower respect on this young teacher since he is going to make the children happy and because he holds the key to their future. ‘A teacher helps you touch the future’ is what they believe.

What’s interesting is that most of the actors in the film are highlanders, and had never acted before, let alone seen the outside world. There is a scene in the film when Dorji asks them if they know what a car is and the children are clueless. They have no electricity, and use solar power and beat off the cold by lighting fires in their rooms with yak dung.

There is a lot that Dorji gets to learn, including how the highlanders value the yak, with which they share a very deep bond. There are some delightful stories in the film around the yak and at one point Dorji may even feel that he probably was a yak in his former life.

In an interview, the director and writer of the film, Pawo Choyning Dorji, had said that through this film he had wanted to highlight how Bhutan was losing many youngsters to Australia. And, how young people failed to realise that they had a responsibility to their own country. Lunana, the village in which the film was shot, was one of the few which had a school and a teacher. The film was inspired by this teacher and a 2003 documentary, School Among Glaciers, by Dorji Wangchuk.

Check it out for some “mindful” movie watching. Incidentally, this film was an Oscar nominee under the Best International Film category.

Also read: KGF-2 review: Revenge of big screen with blood, bullets and grandeur

Last film of Puneeth Rajkumar

James, which started streaming on SonyLiv this weekend, is the late Puneeth Rajkumar’s last outing on the big screen. It already hit the theatres last month but unluckily coincided with the time that The Kashmir Files became popular and Rajamouli’s biggie RRR landed in theatres. However, James has managed to mop up ₹150 crore at the box office so far.

Directed by Chethan Kumar, James is a slick action thriller. Santhosh Kumar (Puneeth), runs a security agency called J Wings. He is hired by a drug lord Vijay Gayakwad (Srikanth) to rescue his daughter, who has been taken hostage by his rivals. As Santhosh Kumar takes up the task, there seems to be something more that is driving him on. A typical potboiler but Puneeth’s fans may want to watch it for sentimental reasons.

There are cameos by Shivarajkumar and Raghavendra Rajkumar, who ironically play teachers for a group of young orphaned boys, preparing them to handle the death of loved ones. If you missed this one at the theatres, check it out.

Vengeful mothers 

While Akshay Kumar’s Bachchan Pandey has turned out to be a super flop in theatres with its wafer-thin plot (we won’t blink an eye), Netflix series Mai too lands this weekend. Sakshi Talwar, who was famous for mega-popular Ekta Kapoor show Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, is seen in an entirely new avatar: as a vengeful mom.

She plays Sheel, a docile, 47-year-old wife-and-mother, who is determined to uncover the cause of her mute daughter Surpriya (Wamiqa Gabbi)’s death. In the course of her investigation, she finds herself accidentally entangled in a web of white-collar crime and dirty politics, which pushes her on the path of violence that forever changes her and the world she inhabits. Initial reviews are praising Talwar for shining in this middling crime drama.

Hercule Poirot on the prowl

In the crime drama Death on the Nile, which has started streaming on Disney+Hotstar, it is Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, who is on the track of the murderer aboard a glamorous river streamer.

Wealthy heiress Linnet Ridgeway-Doyle (Gal Gadot), who has invited her friends and family to join her in Egypt to celebrate her marriage to Simon Doyle (Arnie Hammer), is worried about her safety. The guests on the wedding cruise down the Nile include Linnet’s former friend Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey), who turns up on the ship uninvited after having been betrayed by the heiress and dumped unceremoniously by her lover. Several others have reason not to like either Linnet or Simon, or both.

The mystery-thriller is based on the 1937 Christie novel of the same name. The film is director Kenneth Branagh’s follow-up to his 2017 blockbuster The Murder on the Orient Express. Branagh also plays Poirot. The film boasts of a star-studded ensemble , which includes Bollywood actor Ali Fazal, Annette Bening, Rose Leslie, Russell Brand and Emma Mackey.

The film did not do as well as Orient Express in theatres but several reviewers loved it. And the filmmakers believe they could have a franchise on their hands. While one reviewer said it’s demonstrative and showy, another described it as being “exquisitely crafted and sparklingly packaged”. Some film trivia: The first film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s work was The Passing of Mr Quinn in 1928. It is enjoyable if you like a whodunit.