Educational Media Reviews Online

As our world grows smaller and curiosity about the other greater, the intersection of culture in the form of religious belief and practice is a fertile source for documentary evidence and exploration. The Cross and the Bodhi Tree offers the introspective musings and activities of two representatives of western Christianity, a rather unaffected and energetic French Catholic missionary priest named Father Francois Ponchaud and a conversant English Protestant nun named Mother Rosemary, who find themselves drawn toward and into the Theravada Buddhist monastic tradition of Southeast Asia. While Father Ponchaud sees his exposure to Buddhist practice as an adjunct experience to his scholarship on Cambodia politics in the pre- and post- killing fields era, Mother Rosemary actually adopts the practice of Buddhist meditation to expand introspection on the nature of her own Christian dedication.

Director Alan Channer unrolls a simple and colorful tapestry of alternating and contrasting religious scenes shaped by cultural traditions—Buddhist priests in white robes and a nun in habit wandering through her garden of earthly delight. As Father Ponchaud relates his own story of missionary scholarship in French, a very clear overdubbed English translation allows the audience to feel his sense of dedication and mission, including his sharing his revelation that “if Jesus was a Cambodian, Jesus would go into the pagoda, into the Cambodian religious system, and bring another light.” Instead of conversion, Father Ponchaud, who personally witnessed the rise of the Khmer Rouges and documented their deadly methods in the autobiographical Cambodia: Year Zero (Henry Holt & Company, 1978), has made his personal determination to compliment and not compete with Cambodian Buddhist culture. Mother Rosemary’s narrative presents a distinct alternative viewpoint on Buddhist-Christian synergy, not so much a full immersion in the Buddhist culture, as much as the self-generated flowering of intellectual interest and ultimately a personally adopted Buddhist practice which represents to her a profound example of listening to her own heart and seeking “beauty, wisdom, truth, and goodness” in Buddhism as an act of Christian self-improvement.

The production qualities of the film demonstrate professional care, with properly balanced audio levels and overdubbing for translation. Transitions are seamless, and the soundtrack complements that visual narrative. In sticking with the general premise of Christianity meets Buddhism, Director Channer performs a credible job of weaving together an alternating tale of two iconoclastic religious practitioners visibly uncomfortable with the cultural divide. There is no summit or meeting of the two focal figures, yet their experiences resonate well when juxtaposed. Presenting a view from each gender in Christian tradition is an example of the natural balance of themes in this short feature.

Theravada Buddhist tradition as portrayed in the film contrasts quite dramatically with other popular Mahayana schools of Buddhist thought and practice that historically succeeded Theravada and traveled east to China, Japan, and eventually the Americas, so it is not recommended that viewing these two stories will improve a viewer’s understanding of contemporary Buddhism, except in the specific Southeast Asian filming locations. To the film’s credit, the direction and narration of this dual autobiographical journey leave the focus on the two primary clerical subjects and does not attempt to be a Buddhist primer.

This film is recommended for curricula focusing on crossing the cultural divides of language, belief, and one’s own preconceptions as exemplified in the two active and energetic religious explorers.