Tenzin Dazel’s Royal Cafe celebrates its ten year anniversary this year, but feels like it could have been made today.
In a cafe in Paris, filmmaker Dazel (Pema Shitsetsang), is considering her next feature. She wants to tell Tibetan stories, to represent her people, but doesn’t want to rehash the same plots she’s seen her whole life. The Tibetan people are more than just monks, and Tibetan culture is more than passive resistance and Buddhism. Telling stories to a global audience is difficult, especially when you are trying to do justice to the place from which you hail and the people who occupy it. This struggle is the starting point from which Royal Cafe takes much of its drama.
The film is strikingly meta, from the lead character’s name to the entire subject matter being specific to Tibetan cinema. Tenzin [the character] struggles to find meaning in her film. It’s hard enough to get actors to sign on, with no budget, but even more so when their own cultural hang-ups prevent them from taking that bold step forward. With this, Dazel’s film illustrates the mire that Tibetans are in: they hold a desire to move forward, despite being rooted in tradition, and held at bay by a power far more potent than they are. Yet, they can express themselves far more distinctly elsewhere – but whether they lose their Tibetan identity in the process is a question asked by both Tenzin and her parents.
Therefore, it’s no major surprise that the film-within-a-film naturally touches upon a few topics typical of Tibetan cinema: namely the plights of various exiles and immigrants adjusting to life in Paris. Several men have found an ironic comfort working in a Chinese restaurant, unhappily improving their mandarin instead of their French. Scenes from the movie blend into real life, so real are these stories, that it’s sometimes difficult to tell what is fiction and not.
Dazel tells us everything she wants to by effectively telling us how difficult it is to do so. Through the lens of a meta-commentary, the real commentary shines through. Her best friend is gay. She smokes, and drinks. Her friends go to parties, and fight, and swear. They’re distinctly human – and, in a lot of ways, increasingly French – and their flaws are apparent in ways you just don’t see often. In the ten years since the film’s release, I wish there would have been more stories like this. By portraying exile Tibetans as deeply flawed, lonely, and distinctly complex individuals, Royal Cafe stands as a quietly radical milestone in diaspora cinema.
Royal Cafe (2016)
Tibetan
Director: Tenzin Dazel
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