The Jew In The Lotus . Austin Chronicle . 03-30-98

The Jew In The Lotus

DIRECTED BY: Laurel Chiten

REVIEWED: 03-30-98

A rare congress of two different cultures provides the catalyst for one man's personal and spiritual redemption. When writer Rodger Kamenetz was invited to join a delegation of Jews meeting with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, he was deep in personal crisis, having suffered the loss of a child and serious professional rejection. He accepted the invitation, and it changed his life. As the Dalai Lama and rabbis of various Jewish traditions talked, Kamenetz awakened to a larger, more profound existence - a cosmos in which angels of Tibet and Judaism were conversing - and he saw his place in it. He wrote a book about the meeting and became a popular speaker on the subject, as well as an advocate for the liberation of Tibet. Chiten uses little footage of the meeting itself, but in interviews with the participants and images of Indian and Tibetan life, she vividly portrays Kamenetz's state of mind: his isolation and depression, his immersion in what at first seems an alien culture, and his growing awareness of the bonds between the Tibetan Buddhists and the American Jews. She achieves a portrait of transformation that shifts the universe for its viewers, too, and touches our hearts.

Showing with the film was "Looking for Sly," named "Best Documentary Short" at the SXSW Film Awards. The film follows an Armenian sculptor whose resemblance to Sylvester Stallone leads him to a career as a celebrity impersonator in Moscow, then to Hollywood, where he dreams of meeting the Rambo man himself. It's a new spin on the old Tinseltown cliché of the small-town kid with stars in his eyes who heads to Hollywood to make it big. When that kid is from Armenia, it makes us realize just how far the Dream Factory reaches and how its images can twist our minds. Directors Kia Simon, Eve Conant, and Jonathan Crosby portray their subject's unlikely odyssey without judgment or ridicule, giving us a portrait of a thoughtful, gentle spirit realizing an American Dream.

--Robert Faires

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The Jew in the Lotus

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