The Himalayan Boy and the TV Set review: ‘Beautiful, exquisite, funny’

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/sep/23/himalayan-boy-and-the-tv-set-review

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I was struggling to find something to write about. A programme called Cat Wars on BBC1 was less interesting than it sounds. No claws and flying fur, just some (mainly mad) people who like cats, and some others who don’t. Cat Disagreement would have been a more honest title. Also Release the Hounds on ITV2 – a lie. They’re not really released, and the three annoying reality TV wannabes aren’t torn to shreds. Boo.

Then I found Storyville: The Himalayan Boy and the TV Set (BBC4), which you probably didn’t see, but which you should probably catch up on, because it’s absolutely lovely.

In a remote village in Bhutan, an eight-year-old boy called Peyangki lives with his mother who, like all the ladies around these parts, wears a wicker-spiked hat, a kind of cross between a German first-world-war pickelhaube and a corn dolly. There is no sign of his father; we learn later he died of a heart attack following an encounter in the forest with a bear.

It’s a tough life in the mountains, herding yaks and harvesting barley with a sickle, but change is coming to the valley – a road, and electricity. And, for the first time in Bhutan, the king has allowed television.

But Peyangki’s mother decides – very casually it seems to me – that her son should become a monk, and takes him to the monastery. “Be a good boy and a dedicated monk,” she says, and that’s it. She leaves him there.

Reciting scriptures for hours and hours, praying for every sentient being, polishing the butter lamps – a monk’s life is no life for an eight-year-old with a mischievous streak and a lovely smile. Blowing the big farty horns is the only joy. The other boy monk at the monastery is an unquestioning goody-two-shoes, and is no use at all as a playmate. Oh, and the lama beats Peyangki. Meanwhile his old friends are enjoying themselves with bows and arrows, at school, and are watching the men bringing the poles and cables for the electricity.

Peyangki’s uncle, thinking ahead, decides to sell a yak and go to the city to buy a television. Which he does, but on the way back it falls off the horse and breaks. His wife thinks he’s a bit of an idiot. “Whatever you do, you’re useless,” she scolds him. The miserable uncle agrees to sell another yak, and he goes to the city again for another telly, but this time he takes Peyangki. Yay! From monastic misery to the bright lights.

The journey is beautiful – past fluttering prayer flags, up and down, sometimes getting a sneaky tow from the yak’s tail, with a mighty Himalayan backdrop and a cold blue mountain sky overhead. Then, a ride in a car (a first for Peyangki), and the city. It’s time travel really, from the past to the present.

It’s all so exquisitely filmed. In the mountains, we see Peyangki skipping along a path in his robes, cartwheeling across a corrugated iron roof. And here, in Thimphu, he is watching a new world with wonder and awe. “Let’s take this motorbike and escape,” he says to his uncle. “Ride, ride, ride.”

Instead they buy lollipops, and crisps. And they (eventually) find Peyangki’s sister, not working with a computer in an office as Mum thought, but dancing in a club, a secret that stays in the capital. And they buy a new telly of course, which they do take home.

It’s not just the story of a little boy, it’s the story of a little country undergoing monumental change. There is some sadness about. The diggers tear at the hills, and workmen put up overhead cables, and the scenery will never be the same again. A way of life that has been around for centuries is suddenly disappearing. Who are we, though, to say that Peyangki should do rooftop cartwheels alone and blow the farty horn for ever, instead of watching TV like other kids the world over? Change is inevitable, and the film is not a pessimistic one. It even manages to be funny. “Will my hair look like it’s been eaten by a rat?” asks Peyangki, as the monk hacks at it with what look like yak shears (answer: yes). And god, it’s beautifully shot, did I mention that?

The electricity arrives, to fire up the brand new telly. The whole village arrives, in their best clothes. They’re transfixed, with the slightly glazed look that people only have when they’re watching television. What are they watching, that has turned them all into zombies? WWE wrestling, from America. Maybe that’s all the king allows.