The isolated nation of Bhutan was the last country on Earth without access to television – until 1999. This short documentary from the PBS investigative series Frontline, first aired in 2002, captures the small Buddhist kingdom as the impact of TV began to reverberate. Beaming in images from around the globe, the medium introduced not just a novel form of distraction, but, as one government official puts it, new desires for things the Bhutanese previously didn’t even know existed.
As the film explores, this includes everything from emulating professional wrestlers to buying branded clothing. Throughout, the interviewees – including small children, businesspeople and Buddhist monks – seem, at some level, to be aware that this development is at once culturally corrosive, irresistible and, perhaps, inevitable. Producers: Alexis Bloom, Tshewang Dendup The only man permitted in Bhutan’s sacred mountains chronicles humanity’s impact The long-awaited arrival of TV to Shetland sparks debate in this vintage clip To Tibetan Buddhists, sky burials are sacred.
To tourists, they’re a morbid curiosity For six years, Mahabir Pun hiked two days each month just to check his emails videoComputing and artificial intelligence Civilisation peaked in 1940 and will collapse by 2040: the data-based predictions of 1973 A Zen Buddhist priest voices the deep matters he usually ponders in silence A monk dedicates himself to giving unwanted children the childhood he never had Tour an island community built from scratch in this film from 1972 Why some Chinese millennials are taking up the hermit’s life in the mountains
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