Monk with a Camera
Grade: B+
Director: Tina Mascara (Chris& Don: A Love Story) Guido Santi (Chris & Don . . .)
Screenplay: Documentary
Cast: Nicky Vreeland, et al.
Runtime: 90 min.
by John DeSando
Pretty remarkable transformation.
“You haven't partied until you've partied at dawn in complete silence with Buddhist monks.” Cameron Diaz
Married filmmakers Tina Mascara and Guido Santi have crafted a warm documentary, Monk with a Camera, about Nicholas Vreeland, grandson of legendary Vogue editor, Diana Vreeland. He’s remarkable for forsaking his posh world to become a Tibetan monk and abbot of the Rato monastery, the first Westerner to do so. In addition, he returns to the photography that he learned from Irving Penn to help save the monastery.
The doc is restrained in its praise of this self-effacing spiritual leader, while letting others like Richard Gere and Nicky’s brother, Alexander, do the praising. The camera seems to strive for the most natural and least hyped aspects of Nicky’s remarkable vocation.
As we follow him talking to monks and millionaires alike, the doc effectively makes believers of us who might be skeptical that such a transformation could be possible. See the monk in his adoptive habitat, just as if we too for the few moments of the doc decided to forsake our worldly stuff for a simpler life.
It’s not the kind of sacrifice I’m willing to make and therefore that more remarkable a documentary to make me think of doing it.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
