‘Unmistaken Child’

We’ve seen lots of documentaries that take us to physically inaccessible parts of the world, but this unprecedented film does more than that, it bears witness to a strange and mysterious process: the search for the childhood reincarnation of a recently deceased and revered Tibetan master. Its privileged glimpse deep into unfamiliar spiritual territory has the strength of revelation. “Unmistaken Child” is too sophisticated a film to try to convince audiences one way or another about the validity of reincarnation. But as director Nati Baratz has said, after seeing the child in question, “I think we have to admit that they do know how to choose.”

-- Kenneth Turan