search articles: 

   from the issue of February 8, 2007

     
 
'Words of My Perfect Teacher' opens Feb. 9

"Words of My Perfect Teacher," a documentary about spiritual growth by Lesley Ann Patten, opens Feb. 9 at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center.

The film follows three disciples - Patten, English tarot card reader Louise Rodd and Canadian computer scientist Luc Dierckx - who have signed up with a spiritual assassin.

Their master, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, is a filmmaker himself, having served as an adviser to Bernardo Bertolucci on "Little Buddha" and as director of "The Cup," a film about Tibetan monks seeking a way to watch the World Cup on TV.

Rinpoche ("precious one") comes from an eminent Buddhist family who, at the age of seven, was identified as the third reincarnation of a famous lama. He's a globe-trotting eminence, an elusive figure who slips disconcertingly between tradition and modernity, whose pronouncements they follow carefully, and whose frequent playfulness is a form of provocation that sometimes strikes Patten as profound, sometimes wilful.

She wonders what's going on, as Rinpoche insists she come to an England versus Germany World Cup match in Munich, then disappears - or arranges to meet her and her fellow-disciples in Bhutan, then cancels at the last minute.

The film, which includes appearances by Bertolucci and Steven Seagal, is structured around a journey with provisional destinations and conveys a mixture of respect, frustration, awe and irritation.

"Words of My Perfect Teacher" is showing at the Ross through Feb. 15. Show times are available online at www.theross.org or by calling 472-5353.


GO TO: ISSUE OF FEBRUARY 8

ARTS HEADLINES FOR FEBRUARY 8

'Chris Ware' exhibition focused on Omaha-based graphic novel
American Life in Poetry
Arizona State duo to perform Feb. 15 at UNL
Art and Art History to host 'Modern Medicis' fund-raiser Feb. 17
Jazz masters offer Valentine's Day 'Duets'
'Words of My Perfect Teacher' opens Feb. 9

732715S36720X