5. Walk With Me; movie review

WALK WITH ME
Cert PG
94 mins
BBFC advice: Contains mild sex reference, rude gesture

I admire religious devotees. Simple, blind faith has persuaded them to follow a doctrine which has led them to apparent contentment.
But I still cannot understand what drives them.
Directors Max Pugh and Marc J. Francis were given unprecedented access to a Buddhist community who follow a Zen master called Thich Nhat Hanh.
Hanh was expelled from Vietnam in 1966 and set up the Plum Village community in France.
He seems a very peaceable sort of chap, preaching the sort of teachings with which few could find argument (although dictators and communists tend not to be too keen).
In his writings, read sporadically during this documentary by Benedict Cumberbatch, he asks: "What else is there, how can I touch it? If there isn't anything, why would I be so certain that there is?"
The film does not ask why he is so certain or why Buddhist devotees shave their heads or agree to go without sex.
The rituals and equating of celibacy and piety really wind me up. What is wrong with procreation, for goodness sake? Haven't the scandals in the Catholic Church proved that keeping a lid on one's natural urges can lead to disaster?
I digress. Walk With Me follows the serene and simple lives of Buddhist monks and nuns.
These are folk whose contentment seems to lay within denial. They have no money or material objects of their own and yet seem remarkable at ease.
One monk hits home their philosophy when he says: "When you have a house and a car and all of that stuff, you kind of worry about it. You think will be happy but when you get it, maybe you're not happy."
Mind you, he does prove he has a sense of humour when he compares the Zen Master to Yoda from Star Wars.
What he doesn't address is the great joy (and sometimes sadness) that children can bring.
Indeed, Walk With Me doesn't pose any of the sort of questions I, as a journalist, wanted to ask of those who have given up world possessions to move to Plum Village.
It doesn't examine their motivations and just accepts the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hahn at face value.
This documentary was filmed over three years before Hahn suffered a life-altering stroke and its makers intend it to be a form of meditation.
Thus, it is a quiet picture in which practices are observed rather than mulled over.
My problem is that I am just too inquisitive than to allow a movie to simply wash over me. I needed to fill in the gap with answers when there probably are none.

Reasons to watch: an intriguing insight into a thriving Buddhist community
Reasons to avoid: its lack of narration leaves a lot of unanswered questions

Laughs: none
Jumps: none
Vomit: none
Nudity: none
Overall rating: 6/10

Co-director Max Pugh: The experience of being on the road with the monastics changed my life in many ways. The practice of deep listening, sharing and living alongside the monastics moved me to dig deeper and to work harder to find ways to best represent their way of being on film.

The big question: why is being celibate equate to being pious?

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