This gorgeous quasi-ethnographic film set in Tuva Republic (Russia) opens on a shamanic séance around a campfire, with sun rays filtering through Tibetan prayer flags. Somewhat disorienting, this unidentified dancing and drumming shaman in full but culturally eclectic regalia could be part of a booming shamanic revitalization throughout the Altai, Khakassia, Tuva and Buryatia. The viewer may perceive this pre-titles teaser as a harbinger of romanticized interpretations of shamanic revival, but that first impression would be wrong. Rather, the film is an attempt to show rather than explain some of the complexities, tensions, and commercialization of the shamanic revival in one of the key republics where shamans have proliferated with official republic support and amorphous spiritual searching.
Director and writer Svetlana Stasenko is flexible; she “goes with the flow” of unexpected events during the film. Her outsider positioning is partially compensated by the team of local helpers evident from the credits. Yet the film, currently without English subtitles, is confusing with minimal guidance even in Russian. I strained for better understanding of the Tuvan spoken along with the Russian. The project's background can be gleaned from a search that reveals the two protagonists of the film, Chochagar Kes-Kam and Alexey Razumov, had made an earlier film, Skylark (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPiJbW2QESY) dated 2014, shot mostly in 2013. “Shamanic Lessons” is in part a sequel, a more dramatic and evocative version of the philosophical, musical and spiritual musings of these two engaging men, one a talented young Russian jaw harp player (Razumov) and the other a Tuvan middle-aged translator-turned-white-shaman (Chochagar).
It is difficult to characterize “Lessons” as an accurate documentary, due to translation glosses, liberties with timing, and omissions. Perfect-Russian-speaking Alexey, an aspiring shaman in the film, is presented as an American businessman-psychologist from Portland. Toward the end, a split-second screen mentions his “dissertation” on “sexuality and magnetism” with his Tuva experience as “part of this work” (compare http://www.processwork.org/files/Finalprojects/Razumov_A_February_2017.pdf). More interesting is the “white shaman” guide Chochagar, who toward the end of the film abandons attempts to help Alexey become a shaman, turning him over to an elder shaman called White Dragon. The kindly elder gives Alexey a new name, Red Dragon, and they travel across the border to Mongolia to visit a herder-supplicant of White Dragon's in a horse- and sheep-filled nomadic camp dotted with yurts on a sweeping, bird-soaring steppe. Meanwhile, Chochagar finds a job as an official court translator in the capital, Kyzyl, after admitting “being a black shaman working for money is not for me.…It turns out working with simple people is not for me—you need to just drink with them.”
The film has value as an artistic adventure without conventional context. Tuvan distinctions between black and white shamans are unclear; the historical background of cards and stones used for fortune telling is missing. Several shamanic practitioners are filmed without identifications, probably due to unmentioned shaman rivalries and values of spiritual modesty. The shamanic elder statesman, folklorist Mongush Kenin-Lopsan, appears almost Soviet as he dispenses a typed “license” for money, especially since his endorsement of Alexey is rejected at the local shamanic healing center Dungur (Drum). In another center (possibly Tos Déér [Nine Heavens] of the late Ai-Churek [Benevolent Spirit Heart]), Alexey pays for “3 predictions and a purification.” Two intriguing female shamans are willing to be interviewed on camera, Sara Saryg-ool and Daria Saryglar. Each rejects Alexey as an apprentice, warning that “if you want to become a shaman you will have to live differently,” and that to open the “third eye” of intuition and shamanic healing requires suffering so that “everything in your body feels broken.” Sara emphasizes “a shaman is born, fated, you cannot escape it, nor can you study hard for it.” Perhaps the would-be apprentice trailed by a camera-crew appears to them insufficiently sincere.
This film reinforces how unpredictable the dance of spirituality can be, as debates about cultural authenticity collide with naïve non-native spiritual seekers hoping to find in “shamanism” some ancient pure ur-religion of nature. It is not clear to what degree Alexey was a genuine seeker hoping to become an insider-shaman. Nature is the true protagonist in scenes shot with sensitivity by Irina Uralskaya, to sound by Miron Mongush and composer Sorin Apostol. My most enduring image remains of Chochagar dancing as a bird to Alexey's mesmerizing jaw harp in a field with forest, mountain cairns, and a rushing stream nearby. Yet the film ends with Chochagar walking from a market along a grungy path by a Kyzyl construction site to refrains of a mournful saxophone.
