Film Review: Burma VJ
Sundance Festival film: http://festival.sundance.org/2009/film_events/films/burma_vj
SF Film Festival film: http://fest09.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=13
Director: Anders Ostergaard
This film is mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to know anything about Burma, the spirit of resistance, the cancerous fear, and the regime's complete brutality.*
Seeing the monks taking to Rangoon's streets in 2007 singing for freedom for all beings of the universe always sends chills down my spine. Amid the depressing rest, I was most hopeful about a clip that showed soldiers manning a barricade, constantly looking over their shoulder, unsure of what to do next. They are the next lynchpin in the struggle to free Burma from within - the everyday soldier who chooses to disobey immoral orders, and chooses reconciliation. It means finding and making a peace with serial abusers, rapists, and murderers (who themselves are serially abused, raped, and murdered) - and unfortunately is one of the few victory paths left for any kind of opposition.
The regime leaders are convinced that they control enough of the pieces in the multilateral boardgame of Burmese politics to always neutralize any force that threatens their stasis...but it is only ever tactical victory in their perpetual strategy, and every season the basis of their rule and a merely dysfunctional society is ground down a little more.
If you want to know more about the goings on in Burma, some useful links are:
http://www.dvb.no/
http://www.irrawaddy.org/
http://www.mizzima.com/
I have mixed feelings about the sacrifice that will be required for internal unrest to overthrow the junta, and the role of foreign influence.
*Of course, there are even worse tales, evidence, and more from beyond view of streets, cameras, and whispers.
SF Film Festival film: http://fest09.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=13
Director: Anders Ostergaard
This film is mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to know anything about Burma, the spirit of resistance, the cancerous fear, and the regime's complete brutality.*
Seeing the monks taking to Rangoon's streets in 2007 singing for freedom for all beings of the universe always sends chills down my spine. Amid the depressing rest, I was most hopeful about a clip that showed soldiers manning a barricade, constantly looking over their shoulder, unsure of what to do next. They are the next lynchpin in the struggle to free Burma from within - the everyday soldier who chooses to disobey immoral orders, and chooses reconciliation. It means finding and making a peace with serial abusers, rapists, and murderers (who themselves are serially abused, raped, and murdered) - and unfortunately is one of the few victory paths left for any kind of opposition.
The regime leaders are convinced that they control enough of the pieces in the multilateral boardgame of Burmese politics to always neutralize any force that threatens their stasis...but it is only ever tactical victory in their perpetual strategy, and every season the basis of their rule and a merely dysfunctional society is ground down a little more.
If you want to know more about the goings on in Burma, some useful links are:
http://www.dvb.no/
http://www.irrawaddy.org/
http://www.mizzima.com/
I have mixed feelings about the sacrifice that will be required for internal unrest to overthrow the junta, and the role of foreign influence.
*Of course, there are even worse tales, evidence, and more from beyond view of streets, cameras, and whispers.