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Nima (Tandin Bihda) doesn't know exactly what she's looking for at the start of "I, the Song," which is strange considering that she's searching for someone who looks exactly like her. The school teacher wants to clear her good name after a racy video has surfaced with a woman who bears a resemblance so strong that the school's administrator has placed her on leave. However, with all the time in the world to find her doppelganger in Dechen Roder's intriguing yet intermittently engaging drama, Nima's search for a stranger she comes to identify as Meto (also played by Bihda) reveals how her own life has seemingly gotten away from her.
Bhutan's selection for the international feature Oscar, "I, the Song" provides a showcase for the natural beauty of the country when Nima's travels take her from the capital city of Thimpu to the border town of Gelephu. But more provocatively, Roder wanders off the beaten path for a different view of a culture where personal contentment has long been a point of national pride (with surveys used to calculate the Gross National Happiness index).
Even before Nima is beckoned to the principal's office to find out she's lost her job, there's a feeling of disillusionment. Nima seems adrift when she's stuck with an overly possessive boyfriend who isn't entirely convinced it isn't her in the video despite her insistence. Meanwhile, her mother reminds Nima of more industrious years she spent abroad. As unfortunate as it is to be mistaken for the subject of a viral sex video, the pursuit of the person really in it gives her a renewed sense of purpose.
That subtle, savvy sense of irony runs throughout "I, the Song" and becomes part of its charm when Nima starts to come alive as it looks increasingly probable that she's chasing a ghost. Even with the same actress playing them, Nima and Meto aren't exactly envisioned as two sides of the same coin, but they share a restlessness. The latter, as remembered by others, had a vitality that Nima starts to envy when it's clear that, in spite of leading a life that was not all that much more interesting, Meto at least had passion. The radiant amber light in which Meto is bathed during scenes of her exploits a few years prior becomes a stark contrast to the cool blue world that Nima inhabits in the present. Roder impressively stages scenes where the two live side-by-side in different timelines, and a slight camera pan shows how close Nima gets to feeling what Meto did while still acknowledging the distance between them.
The sophisticated aesthetics can make the narrative feel a little too basic by comparison when the film primarily hangs on the relationship that forms between Nima and Tandin (Jimmy Wangyal Tshering), a musician who mostly plays to an empty bar that she meets early in retracing Meto's footsteps. Appearing to know more than he's willing to let on about his ex's whereabouts, Tandin becomes a recurring presence in Nima's investigation, offering some musical interludes if not much else. Not only can he frustrate Nima, but he exemplifies Roder's occasional tendency to mistake a lack of characterization for mystique when he keeps drawing Nima back despite having little to say. A burgeoning romance isn't entirely convincing, yet the fact that he takes up as much screen time as he does effectively reflects the real estate that the generally mediocre men in both Nima and Meto's lives occupy in the women's minds, preventing them from reaching their full potential, either from suffering their outright condescension or out of concern for how they'll be perceived if they were to assert themselves in the same way.
A vaguely episodic structure that might have otherwise seemed uninspired takes on a certain poignance when Nima is pushed ahead by learning about one situation after another that Meto left behind once they no longer suited her, seemingly giving herself the permission to do the same in her own life. Although that self-realization is timeless, Roder cannily positions it to speak to contemporary times. Nima's downfall from a viral video could only happen during the digital age.
A visit to a village to see Meto's grandmother, too blind to recognize the difference between Nima and her own blood, leads to a plea to the young woman before her to reclaim a folk song from the city that stole it from her when she believes she's been corrupted by modernity. Sometimes "I, The Song" is a bit too quiet to resonate, but it lays bare the echoes of the past in ways that are difficult to shake.