A documentary by Nati Baratz. In English, Tibetan, Hindi, and Nepali with English subtitles. Rated G. Opens Friday, September 11, at the Ridge Theatre

A fascinating tradition is examined with intermittently compelling results in Unmistaken Child, which offers more intimacy than insight regarding the way of Tibetan Buddhism.

To make his feature debut, Israeli filmmaker Nati Baratz spent about four years following young monk Tenzin Zopa, charged with finding a replacement for his beloved master, Geshe Lama Konchog, who died before filming began. Armed with his puckish personality and a quietly eloquent grasp of the English language, Zopa is seen leaving the Kopan Monastery on foot and searching remote stretches of Nepal, near the Tibetan border in search of an infant who may possess the late lama’s departed spirit.

This process, imparted with more grandeur and mystery in Martin Scorsese’s Kundun, is here detailed with startling immediacy, although the effect is undermined by the combination of cheesily overdramatic music and Yaron Orbach’s unremarkable hand-held videography.

You can feel the monk’s consternation as he visits remote villages to conduct interviews for this spiritual version of Tibet’s Got Talent. When he finally discovers a cuddly, snot-nosed two-year-old, the path to divination involves many arcane tests, including a quick visit with a somewhat distracted Dalai Lama and even sending data to a Taiwanese horoscope specialist who lays things out on an Etch A Sketch. Then there comes separating the lad from his anxious parents.

Much of this will raise western eyebrows, although it is undeniably striking when the boy identifies the old man’s objects amongst a small sea of decoys. Ambiguities abound, however—not the least of which has to do with the importance of reincarnation in a religion that preaches detachment as an absolute virtue.