Lois Patiño’s film is a delicate, exotic contrivance, a docu-realist diptych spectacle using nonprofessional actors, about the Buddhist concept of “Samsara”, the cycle of birth, death and life, and the transmigration of souls. Set in Laos and Zanzibar, it is mysterious and quietist, but flavoured with something whimsical and even playful; it is one of those ostensibly serious films best appreciated with the sense of humour, which Graham Greene said was the only thing that allowed him to believe in God. An agnostic might find something a little preposterous, even condescending in it: is it addressed to actual audiences in Laos and Zanzibar, or is this a film by and for western cinephiles? Well, there is charm and ingenuous directness here, and perhaps the influence of Thai film-maker Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
In Laos, an old woman called Mon lies dying; a young man called Amid reads to her from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and she gently tells him of her wish, that she might be reincarnated as an animal. This is not a spiritual demotion and it is only thought of as such because of the cruel way we treat animals. Presently, Mon dies and after travelling in the bardo, the intermediate state between death and rebirth, the old woman’s soul alights in Zanzibar where she is reincarnated as a goat called Neema.
