"I'll be honest with you. I'm a fantastic liar. But I'm trying something new here – I'm going to try to tell the truth". These are the opening lines of director Ahsen Nadeem's CROWS ARE WHITE. It's a lovely contradiction – a liar telling you he will be honest with you.

Ahsen attempts to find guidance through the Tendai Buddhist monks atop Mt. Hiei in Japan in this first-person self-investigative film. Ahsen is a Pakistani man living in Los Angeles with devout Muslim parents in Ireland. He has kept Dawn, his non-Muslim wife, a closely guarded secret from his family. He believes the monks can help him solve it all: his hidden marriage, complicated relationship with Islam, and his own uncertain sense of self (which he is playfully semi-aware of).

After a series of unfortunate and ironic events, Ahsen befriends Ryushin, a "low-level" monk who answers the phone and runs the monastery's gift shop. A more accurate description, however, would mention Ryushin's love of heavy metal music, decadent desserts, iPads, sake, and New Zealand sheep. He is the anomaly of the monastery despite his father and grandfather having been revered masters (cue the photo of Grandpa and the Dalai Lama). And yet, he believes in the Buddhist ways and became a monk as a way to help people. He lives with his contradictions with ease, accepting a self of many multitudes.

Ryushin lets Ahsen in on a secret of the monastery: during the 90-day ritual task of no sleeping or laying down, monks generally can sleep when no one is checking on them. There is my favorite of the film's contradictions: the most devout don't always tell the truth, and yet they are no less devoted. The fact remains, their entire lives are dedicated to Buddhist practice.

By the film's end, Ahsen tells his parents about his marriage. In a touching final scene, his parents and Dawn finally meet. Ahsen's own contradictions find a way to exist alongside one another, following Ryushin's lead.

This is a surprising and optimistic film about two men who illustrate my favorite line of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes."