A documentary by Lesley Ann Patten. Featuring Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Unrated.

This provocative and surprisingly fast-moving documentary overcomes contextual messiness to provide a memorably quirky look at Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, an allegedly reincarnated lama and a highly revered aristocrat in his native Bhutan. The fact that this particular Rinpoche is a worldly fellow who also directed an international hit called The Cup certainly adds to the ecumenical intrigue.

After some rather perfunctory background about the forced dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism--thank you, Chinese Communists--Canadian filmmaker Lesley Ann Patten switches, rather clumsily, to first-person POV and stays there doggedly, following her putatively perfect teacher on trips to London (where he lives), Munich (for a big soccer match), and Bhutan, where rituals and royal treatment clearly get up his nose.

This is interesting stuff, often well-shot and -assembled, but Patten's off-screen narration keeps commenting on the obvious or putting a neurotically self-absorbed spin on things; what mainly looks like a fascinating guy from privileged roots just living his life is frequently spun as his determination to thwart her personal needs as a student and filmmaker. In that sense, the film is certainly instructive, in a cautionary sort of way.

Brief visits with Italian great Bernardo Bertolucci, who used Rinpoche as an adviser on The Little Buddha, and fighting Zen monkey Steven Seagal are tendentious but amusing. Other participants could have been more clearly identified, but one gets the feeling that Patten doesn't always remember the names of beings less enlightened than herself.