📽 BURMA VJ : REPORTING FROM A CLOSED COUNTRY [Anders Østergaard, 2008] - Movie review by mandibil

Burma or Myanmar as it is also known, is one of those countries (tax farms) where the population is held down by very obvious brute force via a large military and police structure. It is very likely that you will "disappear" if you openly criticize the "generals". Some of those who do (or at least did,as this is 9 years ago), are a few brave journalists and photographers.

The movie follows, or rather portrays, a few photographers, particularly one called Joshua. They record riots or other incidents in the cities of Burma and then smuggle them out of the country by way of the internet (as far as i understand). They also communicate via messaging over the web and generally advise each other on where to go and how they are all doing.

Østergaard has got hold of these recordings and have edited it into a full feature length movie. For obvious reasons some of the shots are not in very good quality, but overall they are surprisingly good, everything considered and it does not diminish the story telling, rather on the contrary. It starts out shortly before a big uprising that went on around 2007 and these photographers were on the spot risking their personal safety recording the harsh reaction from the state.

You sense the reluctance from the general population to participate in the protests in the street. Particularly you see women hide down in the back columns. One woman though, Aung San Suu Kyi, is a rebel and she is arrested and put into prison, during the uprising. They fear the peoples sympathy for her and her ability to rouse the anger of the masses, will threaten the power of the generals.

Most of the movie is rather fragmented in the storytelling and I do not blame anyone for that. But I have to review this in the same level as other likewise movies despite the seriousness of the issue and the circumstances in which it was recorded. I never got any real emotional attachment to the characters recording or to the people portrayed in the movie. An important reason is that the photographers are constantly behind the camera and never in view.

The director tries to remedy this by adding "fictional" material to put them in front and add to the suspense by adding mobile phone conversations and various intense uploads over the net and so on. I feel this detracts from the story instead of adding to it. These parts are clearly different in cinematography and feels cheesy to be honest.

But it is still a very engaging experience to be so close to such helpless but heroic people sacrificing their own life for the greater good, if not only for the cinematic reasons, rather than the moral reasons. I believe that NO ONE should sacrifice their life for anyone else. Particularly the monks became famous for showing no fear in the face of an overwhelming and deadly force to subdue these unarmed and slavish people.

I still have seen other documentaries that kicks the but of this one, and I believe the reason is that it does not point to any basic moral or existential problems directly. It feels sort of oldschool and even brings in George Bush (the little one) to "condemn" what is happening, while we all know how the people he "rules" are treated. It is sort of westernized politically correctly presented, without really presenting anything.

My thanks goes out to those incredibly brave photographers and protesters who risked their life to go against their psychopathic rulers ... as would be the greatest thing to ever happen to humanity if we could all be freed from those chains.

Rating: 6/10