Audio By Carbonatix
My Reincarnation was in production for more than 20 years, beginning when acne-plagued teenager Yeshi Silvano Namkhai learned that he’d been dubbed the reincarnation of a famous Tibetan yogi. The judgment was passed down by his world-famous Tibetan spiritual-leader dad, Rinpoche Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, and director Jennifer Fox wastes no time or footage placing the rebel-Euro-son-versus-iron-man-Asian-dad dynamic front and center. It’s a juicy setup that begs for a thick Oprah novel, not get-in, get-out nonfiction. In fact, Fox’s briskness leaves certain questions gaping open. As in, how cynical and derisive is she deliberately being of Rinpoche’s teachings, since all we get are trite homilies and vague advice? Can you film Buddhist instruction without seeming skeptical? Are Yeshi’s years of reticence regarding his appointed destiny an avoidance of “truth” or self-help baloney? Fox ends up clearly on Rinpoche’s team, but her film suggests a deep wariness with Eastern mysticism and of the needy Westerners who lap it up. Which makes it, perhaps unintentionally, pointed and daring.
