Last year distinguished Dutch filmmaker Johan van der Keuken and his wife and collaborator Noshka van der Lely visited Kerala, a coastal province in southwestern India. There he conceived the serenely realized The Eye above the Well, a work affirming the adage, "Good listeners make the best storytellers." Part poetic meditation, part vivid documentation, the film catches us up in the flow of its gentle pace as we are transported through Keralan life: a precocious little girl practicing dance, a group of boys playing in the river, a moneylender on his daily rounds, elephants and buses negotiating a crowded street, a village projectionist preparing his afternoon matinee, and, with concentration and humor, teachers imparting their "wisdom" on a variety of subjects-the three R's, martial arts, temple life, the performing arts. For this minimally mediated portrait (the film eschews commentary), Van der Keuken dwells on three aspects: a culture's transmission of knowledge from teacher to pupil, parent to child; the concrete rhythms which comprise daily existence; and finally, the role of magic and ritual in the transference of knowledge. Never resting too long in one place, The Eye above the Well apprehends the dignity and rich beauty of a culture whose soul is centuries old and too rarely revealed. The journey is sublime. Laura Thielen