Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom film review — Bhutanese slacker story plays it cool

Animals have often been a reliable gateway into ethnographic cinema — for example, in the 2003 art-house hit The Story of the Weeping Camel, about shepherds in the Gobi Desert. In all fairness, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom doesn’t milk its yak, as it were, for endearing appeal. Indeed, the first one doesn’t appear until 50 minutes in, the creatures’ presence only indicated by low grunts in the background.

This film from Bhutan, nominated in last year’s Oscars, is unafraid to take its time. The first feature by Pawo Choyning Dorji, it’s set in Lunana, a Himalayan village where Ugyen (Sherab Dorji), a young teacher from Bhutanese capital Thimphu, has been sent on a posting to the country’s remotest school. His blinkered urban attitudes will be transformed by encountering a community living in spartan conditions but seemingly exemplifying Bhutan’s official ideal of increasing “Gross National Happiness”.

Lunana is gorgeously, panoramically shot by Jigme Tenzing, and empathetically cast with local non-professionals — notably, glowing nine-year-old girl Pem Zam as the school’s eager, alert “class captain”. This leisurely, quietly euphoric film lets you breathe the visual and sonic fresh air of its setting — yet the Lunana section itself is not without a romanticising streak.

What’s really surprising is the first 35 minutes, in which this is essentially a slacker movie about a clueless, self-absorbed protagonist who keeps his headphones on through his eight-day trek into the mountains, oblivious to the magnificence around him. You rather wish the film had retained this wryness, but Lunana is terrific on detail and texture: the use of paper to keep out cold, the rough walls Ugyen must write on for lack of a blackboard.

Any trace of sentiment, meanwhile, is offset by the monumental, shaggy presence of lead yak Norbu, who observes the action with lofty indifference.

★★★★☆

In UK cinemas from March 10