Golden Kingdom

American journeyman director Brian Perkins helms this quiet, mostly realist film about four Myanmar child monks-in-training, adding occasional supernatural and spiritual touches. Viewers are given a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the daily prayer routines of these four young aspiring Buddhist monks and their rigidly ascetic existences—all steadfastly overseen by their patient master, the head abbot (U Zaw Ti Ka) of the monastery. Slowly but surely, the film builds up to more dramatic notes: when the head monk has to leave the youngsters for a few days to attend to urgent business in the nearest town, the green pre-adolescent monks must fend for themselves until their master returns. And when the sheltered children finally emerge from their monastery in search of food, they get a phantasmagoric glimpse of Myanmar's recent reality as they are confronted with the ugly truth of the political conflicts that have been raging on and off ever since Burmese independence was declared in the late 1940s. The film's strength lies in its visual elements, with the lush rural Myanmar backdrop stunningly juxtaposed against the monks' mostly hushed interior existence. A rewarding watch for patient audiences, this is recommended. (M. Sandlin)