The Jew In the Lotus

Writer Rodger Kamenetz was in a bad space, rejected by publishers and mourning his infant son, when a friend asked him to tag along to India and record a meeting of rabbis with the Dalai Lama. His Holiness had one key question: how did the Jews survive their exile and remain spiritually whole? Kamenetz's life was transformed after meeting the Tibetan leader; this film chronicles that transformation and Kamenetz's ultimate rediscovery of his own Jewish heritage by way of Buddhism. He also wrote a best-selling book (the weak pun of the title was appreciated by the DL) and suddenly found himself successful and sought after. You may find Kamenetz coming off as needy and self-absorbed at times, but his story is touching and powerful, particularly his exploration of his own grieving process.

Filmmaker Laurel Chiten photographs urban India with an eye hungry for hyperbole: crippling poverty and heartbreaking beauty, grand temples alongside filthy slums, starving children who are smiling and playful, astonishing images of Buddhist and Hindu culture clashing and intermingling. The ubiquitousness of the Dalai Lama in contemporary cinema notwithstanding, her film offers a special look at the exalted, exiled holy man through the eyes of a mensch who could be any one of us. At the Avon.

-- Peg Aloi