Panorama - BERLINALE

Baytong - by Wolfgang Kick

Thailand 2003
Director Nonzee Nimibutr

The movie tells us the story of a monk from Thailand who is being confronted to life outside the temple. Tum, 27 years old, has been raised in contemplation and total abstinence a Buddhist monastery after the death of his parents. When his sister becomes the victim of a terrorist attack, he has to take care of her daughter and leave the temple. He enters a world that is totally new for him, a world of billboards and shopping malls, of globalization and of other religions such as the islam. Tum takes it with enthusiasm at times, finds it very hard to deal with the culture shock at others. But what is maybe most difficult for him, that is getting to know feelings in relationships to other people, in particular to Lynn, a family friend.

The shyness and the slowness are amazing, with which he dares to run into this world step by step. Usually he cannot express himself with words, but it is better like that. He doesn’t lose the calmness that he had learned during his stay in the temple, even facing big psychological difficulties, and that is what we can learn from him.