Ahsen Nadeem’s Crows Are White premiered at SXSW: a filmmaker’s amusing albeit puzzling spiritual quest alongside a Buddhist monastery’s misfit monk.
“I’ll be honest with you. I’m a fantastic liar. But I’m trying something new here – I’m going to try to tell the truth”. These are the opening lines of director Ahsen Nadeem’s Crows Are White. It’s a lovely contradiction – a liar telling you he’s going to be honest with you. Whether or not you are to believe Nadeem by the end of the film is up to you, but by the time the credits roll, the question may not matter as much.
Crows Are White is a first-person self-investigative film in which Nadeem attempts to find truth, guidance, and reconciliation through the Tendai Buddhist monks atop Mt. Hiei in Japan. Nadeem is a Pakistani man living in Los Angeles with devout Muslim parents currently in Ireland. He has kept Dawn, his non-Muslim wife, a closely guarded secret from his mother and father. He believes the monks can help him solve it all: his hidden marriage, his complicated relationship with Islam and its ancient traditions, and his own uncertain sense of self (which he is playfully semi-aware of).
The film opens on a slow drive up a long and winding road through the mountainous forests of rural Japan. Gray skies loom above and misty fog settles in the valleys. From the opening shot, it is clear this film is that of a journey, a journey seeking spiritual guidance… while also knowing it could make a great film along the way, a slight undertone of insincerity felt throughout (“pics or it didn’t happen” vibes).
Nadeem sets his focus on one monk in particular, the wholly dedicated Kamahori, who has completed nearly all of the Tendai sect’s extreme physical tasks, certifying him as an enlightened “living Buddha.” The issue is Kamahori has taken a vow of silence. Unable to speak to Kamahori, Nadeem soon realizes he must find another way to obtain the counsel he seeks.
Then an ironic and plot-changing event happens. Nadeem’s phone rings in the middle of an incredibly physically and spiritually demanding ritual. Furious, the monks kick him and his camera crew out of the monastery. Though devastated at the time, Nadeem soon tries to return to the monastery and beg for forgiveness, but instead makes it only to the front entrance and meets Ryushin.
Ryushin is a “low-level” monk who answers the phone and runs the gift shop of the monastery (more on contradictions later). A more accurate description, however, would mention Ryushin’s love of heavy metal music, decadent desserts and parfaits, iPads, quality sake, and New Zealand sheep. He is the anomaly of the monastery, despite his father and grandfather having been revered masters (cue the photo of Grandpa and the Dalai Lama). The two men form a bond.
Ryushin is another lovely contradiction in the film: a monk that listens to Slayer, eats meat, shops on Amazon, and yearns for happiness over enlightenment. And yet, he believes in the Buddhist ways and became a monk as a way to help people. He lives with his contradictions with ease, accepting a self of many multitudes. Ryushin even lets Nadeem in on a secret of the monastery: during the 90-day ritual task of no sleeping or laying down, monks generally can sleep eight hours a day when no one is checking on them. He knows because that’s what he did.
There is my favorite of the film’s contradictions: the most devout don’t always tell the truth, and yet they are no less Buddhist, no less devoted. Their whole lives are dedicated to Buddhist practice.
By the end of the film, Nadeem tells his parents about his marriage. He seems to have blended his double life into one. But other than pressure from Dawn, it is muddled how he got there. It was never clear why Nadeem thought that Buddhist monks, specifically the Tendai sect, would help him find clarity, a major plot hole that is never really filled in. At one point, upon resuming filming after taking a long production break, Nadeem even says that after all these years, he hadn’t really learned anything. How did he learn of these Buddhists and why did he want to film them, really? Was it all just fascination with their extreme practices, molded into a personal film only later? The progression often feels a bit like 2 + 2 = 5, but asks the audience to go along with it anyways.
This disconnect is the film’s central flaw, though not a fatal flaw. If you strip away the theatrics and suspend your natural human desire to make sense, there is no denying that Nadeem is a quirky and interesting man genuinely looking for resolve in his life. Whether we believe him or his cinematic intentions every step of the way wanes in significance. It doesn’t all add up, but as the credits roll, what I remember is a surprising, amusing, engaging, and optimistic film about two men who illustrate my favorite line of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”
