Kabkab su

Kabkab Su, the latest film screening at Lugar Theatre in Thimphu, reminds the Bhutanese audience of one of Bhutan’s favourite love stories, that of Mitshe Sumgi Drog in which two true, but ill-fated lovers – Alu Penjo and Gensa Lham – live three lifetimes together to find a fulfilling union. It attempts to retell an old story in a modern setting, but it just about manages to become the usual kind of a chick flick that appeals to the average Bhutanese movie-goer.

The film lucidly brings out some common hindrances to flowering of love like wealth and social status. It portrays some common Bhutanese cultural practices around which the institution of marriage revolves.

Kabkab Su opens in a remote Bhutanese village where a man promises his younger sister’s hand in marriage to a relative without the sister’s knowledge. Meantime, a secret love has already blossomed between the sister, Wangmo (played by Tandin Bidha), and a village boy called Tashi (played by Chencho Dorji). Wangmo is the sister of the rich man of the village and Tashi is a poor orphan.

When Wangmo comes to know about the matrimonial arrangement her brother has made for her, she and her lover plan to escape from the village and the forced marriage.

The man of the brother’s choice for Wangmo discovers the clandestine plan and immediately springs into action. On their way of the village, the man waylays and kills both Wangmo and Tashi harshly putting an abrupt end to their love life.

But they are not to be separated. They are bound by the string of fate, and they meet lifetime after lifetime to continue their love.

Just as the love of Wangmo and Tashi, the flow of the story in the film occasionally stumbles and interrupts the otherwise captivating story. Characterization could have been stronger and less confusing.

Within a few months of their death, Wangmo and Tashi are reborn, Wangmo as her brother’s daughter and Tashi as a rich man’s son. And this lifetime, they stand a better chance for a more fulfilling union.

Wangmo and Tashi, who are now reborn as Rinzin and Deki, are haunted by intermittent bitter-sweet dreams about each other’s love and death in the previous life.

When they meet at the Royal Thimphu College as students, similar dreams they share with each other bring Rinzin and Deki together. However, once again their love for each other is up against a series of odds.

Like all Bhutanese films, Kabkab Su is punctuated by song sequences. The two-hour film has eight songs.

Written and directed by Tshering Nidup, the movie has been made at the cost of Nu 1.4 million.

From: bhutanobserver.bt/

The Container–short film at Cannes

Cannes Film Festival 12 May, 2011 - The Container, a co-production between Bhutan and Australia, and shot in Gaselo village, Wangduephodrang, is screening at the short film corner of the Cannes film festival.
Inspired by a true event that took place in the 1980s, the 15-minute movie, directed by Jamyang Dorji, was shot in less than two weeks, and is about a mother’s devotion to her child, as she travels great distances from her poor, remote community, to get some medicine from a small basic health unit for her very ill child.

In a cruel twist of fate, she learns that, even though the medicine is provided for free, she must have a container to hold the precious liquid. She does not have a bottle and cannot afford to buy one, and the search begins.

At one time, the mother played by Deki Yangzom, who acted in Travelers and Magicians, even tries to sell her dzee (antique jewelry) to get herself an empty bottle. Her desperate search reveals the emotional core of a mother, who is constantly worried about the safety of her child. It also reflects the trials and tribulations of parenthood.

The container symbolises protection from the uncertainties of life. Life itself is difficult to hold and, sometimes, simple things affect it in a big way.

In the end, it also renders a spiritual touch, as the mother finally gets hold of a vase (bumpa) from a lhakhang to hold the medicine. The movie is art-based, focused on a subject and targeted at a select audience. The movie was screened at the Cannes film festival yesterday at 12am.

The purpose of short movies is not to make money, but to convey one’s artistic message, according to Tashi Gyeltshen, a filmmaker, who also said that short filmmaking is almost non existent in the country.

A short-film festival, called the Beskop Tshechu, was organised last year among Bhutanese short filmmakers.

Source: Kuenselonline.com