M.J. Rose

Will a simple disciple find the “unmistaken child”?

We don’t post about films very often here, but this one seems quite compelling as well as visually stunning and with a beautiful soundtrack. It offers a rare glimpse into age-old traditions that Westerners are not usually able to see.

Unmistaken Child
Directed by Nati Baratz. STC. 102 min. Opens Oct 2.
(Jeff Cottrill)

It’s not always easy for outsiders to document the finer details of a culture. Israeli filmmaker Nati Baratz wisely eschews commentary or judgment in Unmistaken Child, his documentary look into the closed world of Tibetan Buddhism. Aside from a few explanatory opening titles, Baratz lets his footage speak for itself from a rare, up-close point of view.

The film follows a young monk, Tenzin Zopa, on his three-year search for the reincarnation of his master, Geshe Lama Konchog, who died in 2001. Grief-stricken but serene, Tenzin travels throughout Nepal’s Tsum Valley, using vague astrological clues as his guide.  It’s Tenzin’s personal journey that makes the Unmistaken Child richly moving. He speaks candidly in English about his close relationship to Geshe, his childhood and his dialogue with nature. Baratz complements Tenzin’s story with beautiful shots of Himalayan landscapes and striking footage of Buddhist ceremonies and family life…

For the complete review click here.

The official film site is here. Watch the trailer below.

In a sense, fossils are like reincarnations – they can bring to life lost knowledge of an entire lineage of a species.

Oldest “Human” Skeleton Found–Disproves “Missing Link”

Jamie Shreeve Science editor, National Geographic magazine

Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye. Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago. The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed “Ardi.” (See pictures of Ardipithecus ramidus.)

The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin’s time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today’s apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree…

Click here for the complete article.

Japan’s Next First Lady: Introducing ‘Mrs. Occult’

With hair that sometimes reveals a shock of white, sometimes goes all black, Miyuki Hatoyama, 66, is striking enough in person. That she is visible at all is a surprise. In Japan, the wives of politicians are often neither seen nor heard. But Miyuki Hatoyama has become something of an international media phenomenon because of remarks in a book she once wrote — and, oh yes, because her husband, Yukio Hatoyama, 62, is assuming the office of Prime Minister after what many are calling one of the most important elections in post-war Japanese history.

After his Democratic Party of Japan displaced the Liberal Democrats from more than half-a-century in power, her words in a 2008 book entitled Most Bizarre Things I’ve Encountered made it around the world and momentarily overshadowed his victory. In the book, she claimed that in her sleep aliens took her soul to the planet Venus, which she described as being very green. The headlines around the world were shocked, shocked, in a predictable way, with bad puns from London to New York, and even in neighboring South Korea, China and Taiwan…

For the rest, click here.