The Dalai Lama: Scientist

Dawn Gifford Engle's The Dalai Lama: Scientist, is an educational and spiritual exploration into the perspective of the film's subject matter — one of the most influential figures of the world — The 14th Dalai Lama, and his subsequent relationship with the subject of science and the figures behind it. 

More of an auditory intake than a visual one, Engle's documentary, The Dalai Lama: Scientist is masterful at creating an atmospheric background for the viewer. An air of relaxation is created by subtly implementing and restraining the use of background music to invest said viewer into the discussion. Footage — or rather, discussions — of the scientific and spiritual topics, as well as the presentation regarding his holiness' life itself, are married with the appropriate sound/silence. This perfectly equips the viewer to the nature of discussion, while never intruding upon that experience by making their presence know. 

One major black spot to this perfection lies within the intruding music of the film's opening and ending shots. It is way too loud for an otherwise silent and meditative experience and feels much more appropriate for a blockbuster film rather than a documentary. Fortunately, this intrusion only happens during moments of non-educative scenarios, so it is easier for the audience to pardon it and remember the entire auditory experience with its intended meditative style. 

The documentary is comprised of archival footage which is used as narration when delving into the research  surrounding this decade’s extended harmony of a man's spiritual revelations and scientific curiosity. The footage explore how this transforms people on both sides to a more balancing viewpoint towards the nature of knowledge and life. It becomes necessary for a documentary of such enormous subjective matter to present its findings in a delicate and continuous rhyme, so that the transitions of topics and his holiness' viewpoints towards them, should not feel jarring in their intake. Here, the documentary reveals both its one major strength and flaw which lies within one: the editing. This determines the investment of the viewer.

The editing, known by anyone remotely familiar with the nature of documentaries, is possibly the make or break factor within the genre and becomes even more critical than usual when the presentation at hand is educational. In a biographical documentary, an investing narration and subject matter can save the presentation from its lacking style of visual compilation. However, in an educational documentary, editing is the king. It is the core factor that holds the attention of a viewer. 

Engle's documentary is well aware of its nature. It presents its most beautiful edits when a discussion  about his holiness' learning experience heightens from fundamental to complicated.  Tidbits of biographical aspects — like a basic introduction to the man himself, the friendship that he forms with the moderators  and how he forwards these teachings to his disciples — reveals themselves. However, when it comes to the transition from one subject to another, the film starts relying on the old done trope of presenting a title card in relation to that topic. For example, an early transition in the documentary shows a discussion about physics progressing into a discussion about psychology.

This would not have been a discretion if it was a typical education documentary, but when taking the film's spiritual components into consideration, it feels jarring and can sometimes be a mood killer. However, the documentary soon makes up for such quality with the editing in the confined space of that particular subject, so as with the auditory experience, the viewer finds it way easier to forgive and not harm their overall involvement. 

The Dalai Lama: Scientist, is a wonderful experience that one could not possibly rate with a number on or be made at for any longer than a jiffy. It is an educational experience and should be treated as one. Both followers and non-followers of scientific and Buddhist communities would find a joyful and calming experience that not only celebrates a man and his legacy but human learnings and curiosity as a whole.