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The Next Guardian

The Next Guardian

2018

Director

Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbo

Runtime

75 minutes

Average Rating

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Synopsis

Brother and sister Gyembo and Tashi are normal teenagers. They love soccer and their phones. In their Himalayan village, their father oversees a Buddhist temple that has been in the family for generations. He hopes his son will one day take over his duties. He would prefer that Gyembo leave his modern English-language school in favor of a monk school. In this thoughtful and tender portrait of a Bhutanese family, the generation gap is as large as their love for one another. Celibacy doesn't offer an enticing future to an adolescent boy, which Gyembo's father understands. Nonetheless, he still tries to convince his son that being a monk offers many advantages. Meanwhile, Tashi feels more like a boy than a girl, and dreams of a life as a pro soccer player. She wants to attend a soccer camp that would be the first step in being selected for the national team. Unfortunately, though happiness is high on the political agenda in Bhutan, not all wishes come true.

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Diversity & Representation

Overall Score

7.0/10

Good

Category Breakdown

LGBTQ+ Representation

Fair

Tashi expresses a gender identity that diverges from traditional feminine expectations. While the film avoids modern Western labels, it provides meaningful subtextual representation of non-cisnormative identity.

Gender Representation

Good

The film subverts patriarchal structures by centering Tashi's ambitions to become a professional soccer player. This creates a sophisticated critique of traditional gendered social conditioning.

Racial & Ethnic Diversity

Excellent

The narrative centers a Bhutanese family and their specific Himalayan landscape. It avoids the outsider gaze by utilizing a local cast and characters of color with high agency.

Religious & Cultural Diversity

Good

The story explores the friction between religious lineage and modern secular education. It presents a complex view of Buddhist traditions through the lens of generational tension.

Disability Representation

Minimal

There are no documented depictions of physical or neurodivergent disabilities in the film.

Strengths

  • Authentic Bhutanese storytelling that avoids the outsider gaze.
  • Nuanced subversion of traditional gender hierarchies through Tashi's ambitions.
  • Sophisticated exploration of the tension between tradition and modernity.

Areas for Improvement

  • Lack of explicit LGBTQ+ narratives or community-based representation.
  • Limited scope regarding the depiction of physical or neurodivergent disabilities.

AI Analysis

The film excels at providing an authentic, non-Western perspective that avoids Eurocentric cinematic norms. By centering a Bhutanese family, it offers a high degree of racial and ethnic agency that resists common tropes of marginalized subjects. While the film provides nuanced subtext regarding gender identity and the subversion of traditional roles, it lacks explicit LGBTQ+ community narratives. This limits the depth of its queer representation despite the meaningful character work. Ultimately, the work succeeds as an intersectional portrait of the tension between spiritual heritage and individual autonomy in a modernizing world.

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