LIHU‘E — John Wehrheim of Lihu‘e can now add the line “two-time Emmy award winner” to his already-impressive resume. The film he wrote and photographed, “Bhutan: Taking the Middle Path To Happiness,” while in that Himalayan country in 1991 doing
LIHU‘E — John Wehrheim of Lihu‘e can now add the line “two-time Emmy award winner” to his already-impressive resume.
The film he wrote and photographed, “Bhutan: Taking the Middle Path To Happiness,” while in that Himalayan country in 1991 doing hydroelectric consulting work, won 2010 Emmys last month for best music and best history/culture piece, he said.
Partner Tom Vendetti, director, from Maui, accepted the awards at the San Francisco ceremony. Robert Stone, also of Maui, edited the piece.
“It was a big surprise. I really wasn’t expecting we’d win,” said Wehrheim, adding that Vendetti called as soon as he left the San Francisco stage with the hardware.
“We were all delighted — not just for ourselves but for the recognition that the Emmys will give to Bhutan’s enlightened development policy — a policy that focuses on ‘Gross National Happiness’ rather than ‘Gross National Product,’” said Wehrheim in his e-mail.
“The awards were announced at the ceremony. We had no advanced notice,” he said. “It was a huge surprise.”
Wehrheim also published a book, “Bhutan: Hidden Lands of Happiness,” which he describes as “a geographical and cultural passage from the yak pastures along the Tibetan border, through the rice lands in central Bhutan.”
The book has 108 photographs plus an extensive text that guide the reader through ancient villages, remote hot springs and isolated hermitages and completes the journey in the streets, bars and nightclubs of the country’s capital, Thimphu Town, he said.
The photos are narrated with stories, journal entries, folk-lore, dharma teachings and oral histories that create a portal across centuries.
The trio also collaborated on “Taylor Camp,” and the DVDs and books of both films are available at Borders Books Movies & Music in Lihu‘e’s Kukui Marketplace.
PBS exposure paid off
“Bhutan” the movie is in the middle of a five-year contract to air on Public Broadcasting Service stations, and has been showing at film festivals especially where the festivals focus on environmental or spiritual matters, Wehrheim said in an e-mail.
Christopher Hedge created the film’s score in collaboration with Paul Horn, Jigme Drukpa and Bhutan’s Royal Academy of Performing Arts.
“Bhutan” was launched to a larger audience through the PBS contract, and was nominated for Emmys because of that exposure.
Bhutan, last of the Buddhist Himalayan kingdoms, is one of the most remote, rugged and rural nations on earth, a heavily-forested land of rare beauty and teeming with wildlife all but extinct in the rest of Asia.
The film presents a fascinating look at how the deeply-spiritual Bhutanese people try to balance the forces of modernization and economic development with a traditional culture that venerates and protects all life.
“The ‘Bhutan’ movie reflects the larger modern search for happiness and fulfillment in an increasingly material and impersonal world,” Wehrheim said of the film’s vision.
“Bhutan’s development philosophy of ‘Gross National Happiness’ falls in line with the critical global need to transform human behavior and create an interconnected worldview that will bring about responsible economic practices,” explained Stone.
“The film unequivocally concludes that human survival depends on our ability to live in harmony with nature.”
“There’s a lot of wisdom to be found in Bhutan,” added Vendetti. “The four conceptual pillars of ‘Gross National Happiness,’ a richly-diverse and well-balanced environment, a transparent government, an evolving culture based on traditional wisdom and a sustainable economy are all critically important not only in Bhutan but to the rest of the world.”
“Bhutan is taking the middle path,” Wehrheim said of the film’s title, “trying to develop in a way that balances the people’s physical and spiritual needs while the rest of the world embraces globalization and materialism.”
‘Bhutan,’ ‘Taylor Camp’ connected?
“People are often puzzled by our rapid shift in subject from ‘Bhutan’ to ‘Taylor Camp,’ and can’t see the connection.” explained Wehrheim.
“But we felt a very strong connection. When I screened ‘Taylor Camp’ in Bhutan several monks showed up and said that the film had a very Buddhist message,” he said.
“Both films demonstrate the wisdom and redemption of natural perfection — people living simple and relatively happy lives, with few possessions, in abundant natural settings.
“Both films offer the vision and hope of ‘ecotherapy’ and counterbalance the ‘global dread’ that so many young people feel today — the economic debt and the destruction of the natural world that is driving so many people into a virtual world totally disconnected from nature,” he said.
“It’s so ironic that this ‘global dread’ is the legacy of the baby-boomer flower-power generation. Those values were quickly shed by many of our generation as soon as the counterculture idealism and art of the ‘60s was packaged and marketed as a billion-dollar entertainment industry and our heroes and idols changed from barefoot gurus with begging bowls and chillums to rock stars in limousines chugging Dom Perignon and hoovering coke,” said Wehrheim.
“I see our films as antidotes to ‘Avatar’ and other virtual fantasies,” Wehrheim said. “Sure I got off on Pandora, the world as we know it but on a cocktail of LSD and steroids with tall sexy blue people riding flying dinosaurs and defeating our world’s military with spears and arrows? Come on, give me a break,” he said.
“Offering the hope or the fantasy that there might be another, better world out there either in space or virtual reality only causes us to devalue the world, our planet, our only mother earth, and makes it easier for us to destroy it,” he said.
“‘Bhutan’ and ‘Taylor Camp’ offer hope through the wonder and beauty of life lived simply in the real world. There’s nothing on Pandora that can compare to the feeling of walking Na Pali Coast or climbing in the mountains of Bhutan,” he said.
“Taylor Camp” screenings are June 18 at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Kaua‘i Community College Performing Arts Center, June 19 at 8 p.m. at the Prince Golf Course clubhouse, and June 26 and June 27 at 7:30 p.m. at Waimea Theatre.
• Paul C. Curtis, assistant editor and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com.
