Three factors make it a breakthrough in the art of film-making in the country. First its exhaustive exploitation of the technique of dramatic irony. Second, its Buddhist content and theme is so richly portrayed without being pedagogic. Third, its structure follows the classical tripartite division of theatrical performances into a thesis, an anti-thesis and a synthesis.
The story unfolds with a birth-death scene. The spell is cast. At his birth, Yoedsel’s mother dies. At a young age he is emotionally entangled with Yiwong, a bastard staying with an uncle henpecked by a boorish aunt. Thus an element of unnatural relationship is introduced in the very beginning. Yoedsel enjoys all the love of his father (Ap Gyembo). Village folks adore him. There is an agonizing separation between two young lovers. He goes to college at Sherubtse and wins a scholarship to the United States. The father sells most of his lands to support his son’s scholarship for five years.
The return of the son after five years is however, an anti-climax. The peasant’s son has transformed himself, speaking English, visiting nightclubs, driving cars, eating fast foods. He does not inform his father of his arrival. Very abruptly he involves in a relationship with a girl whose look, attitude and behaviour reflects his own.
The meeting of the father and the son is anything but warm and affectionate. As they stay together, the situation worsens. In the course of the story, Yoedsel picks up Yiwong, who has run away from home and gets employed at the Handicrafts emporium. But she stays with him not as his beloved, rather a slave. The movie reaches its climax when the father is locked out, Yiwong sidelined during a dance party Yoedsel organizes at home for his friends.
Of course the film has its drawbacks. Yiwong and Yoedsel are very fanciful names. Versified dialogues in mundane circumstances inflate the situation to unrealistic proportion. The characters of Yiwong and Ap Gyembo are too good to be true. Costumes and make up in rural setting sometimes do not depict characters in true context. The transformation of Yoedsel from a beloved son to a loathsome rebel is abrupt. There is definitely a strong bias against the influence of westernisation.
The movie has its comparative advantage in cast and technology from other films. Gyem Dorji (Ap Gyembo) is now a familiar face on the celluloid screen, Lhaki Dem (Yiwong) is the local Khorwa celebrity and Tshering Gyeltshen who plays Yoedsel and wrote the script, has a history of stage performances. Chepai Bu also has the best cinematography so far.
Filmed in the ancient village of Wolakha and confines of urban Thimphu, Chepai Bu attempts to bring into picture the conflict between tradition and modernity. But it rather succeeds in capturing conflicting human emotions. Viewers will not grudge the three hours they must commit in seeing it at its release on September 14.
By Sonam Kinga