Currently screening as part of the 20th Biografilm Festival in Bologna.
«Don’t think about the past. Don’t think about the future. Don’t think about friends, family. Let it all go. Nothing is worth keeping. Everything ceases to exist. Think about that. Accept it. That’s enough to become happy.»
It’s a profound opening for a film that brings its viewers sweeping across a mountain range to dive down into a tiny, remote monastery in Sri Lanka, where a former top Danish HIV researcher has cast off the trappings of civilisation to live life as a Buddhist monk.
Filmmakers Mira Jargil and Christian Sønderby Jepsen, trying to find balance in their stressful lives, have gone to see if they can find happiness in solitude. Will they find enlightenment in this tiny Shangri-La? Or will they fall into an existential investigation and moving family drama about control, mental health and reconciliation?
As I settled into a meditative pose and emptied my mind to watch The Monk, my money was already in the latter direction….
This direction emerges slowly. In its early frames, it is all verdant greenery on a wooded mountainside where Jan Erik Hansen—aka Bhante—leads a solitary life with only a couple of dogs for company. We are plunged immediately into the contemplative world of a Buddhist monk.
The bookshelves are groaning under the weight of the Buddha’s memoirs of several hundred previous lives, the tenets of Buddhism, and science. And then there are books on scientific topics that link Bhante to his earlier life—he clearly has not let go of everything that connects him to a life once lived in the public eye, when he was part of a team that found the antiviral drugs to tackle AIDS.
There are gruesome photographs of corpses – used for contemplation on death – and a human skull casually placed on a shelf. On his desk there is sound and video equipment for his broadcasts on Buddhism and his path in life that people from around the world follow.
«I thought the world was shit. I still do, but I am not depressed about it,» Bhante tells the filmmakers.
All seems well in the Garden of Eden.
Bhante lives by simple but strict rules: No lying, no sexual relations, no alcohol, one meal a day. He has 100,000 subscribers on his YouTube and Facebook sites and counsels people the world-over. They write of depression, schizophrenia, despair. Buddhism has cured him of depression, he says, but the world is still in its grip.
The Danish monk seems enviably free of such ailments. He says his «past biographical life» has withered like a dead weed and will not take life again. But when Christian asks him about whether his son will come to visit him, the monk becomes defensive: «There are precautions. We had better talk about this off camera,» he tells the filmmaker.
The soundtrack – the animal and insect sounds found in this verdant forest mountain, with occasional classical music interludes – is perfect for a film about a man’s search for himself by losing himself. And often, Bhante does literally that, disappearing into the thick undergrowth when the filmmakers’ questioning pulls him too far away from the new life that he has made for himself in solitude.
The story becomes deeper and more complex when the filmmakers return to Denmark and learn the impact Bhante’s (or Jan as his father Hakon still calls him) departure has on his family.
«I thought the world was shit. I still do, but I am not depressed about it»
Bhante’s peace in isolation has come at the cost of family relations. His father has asked his son if he misses his own son – and «never received an answer.» He is perplexed as he talks to the filmmakers at his home, which has views across the open sea. There is a sense of abandonment, and he only wishes that «Jan» would come back.
But who is «Jan»? The answer, in this deeply affecting and beautiful film, seems to be that, though one can reinvent oneself, one cannot reinvent others who have spent years developing emotional attachment for one who is still living but also essentially gone.
Bhante gets quite irascible when pressed on his «biography» – telling the filmmakers that the project is not about his past or who he was. It is all irrelevant.
It is at this point that the complexity of leaving the world of form behind for the world of the spirit becomes more apparent, and this is ultimately what makes this deep dive into a world many dream of but few ever chance more fascinating.
«Let’s see if we can show people deathlessness,» the monk says.
The filmmakers meet an impasse with Bhante. The project is put on pause for several years before they receive a message that puts the entire notion of escaping the world into disturbingly sharp focus. And it’s here that the deep background story is finally told….without the original protagonist’s participation.
To go any further would be to reveal spoilers to a film that is best contemplated by the individual viewer.
