Held in socio-economic limbo for almost a full half century by a military dictatorship that turned away the just election of eventual Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and sentenced her to two decades of house arrest, Burma (or Myanmar, as it’s known to many inside the country) is probably the second most isolated country on the planet, behind only North Korea. Filmed clandestinely over a two-year period, the contemplative new documentary They Call It Myanmar provides a fascinating, beyond-the-manicured-travelogue-hedges snapshot of the second largest country in Southeast Asia, home to more than 60 million people — many stuck in terrible poverty but still hopeful for their country.
Directed by Robert E. Lieberman, a physics and former math professor at Cornell, They Call It Myanmar is a work of humanistic reportage, blending together stunning footage of everyday Burmese life with interviews from Suu Kyi and others. Tourism travel is permitted in Burma, but foreigners are watched, and filming and photography — especially of governmental buildings and institutions — is controlled. Ergo the discreet arrangements, in which many surnames are withheld in detailing the stories of children who only spend two or three years in school, and families who habitually pawn their blankets and cookware just in order to be able to afford busfare to work.
Lieberman eschews didactic set-up, but still provides an effective historical overview for those unfamiliar with the country — its rich tradition prior to British colonial rule, and its wars and messy existence post-independence. He also imparts a sense of the culture and climate, pointing out such details as the tropical weather by way of a special, cooling wood paste many people wear on their faces.
The rich emergent portrait of underclass life and love is marked by moments of heartbreak and joyfulness, sadness and levity, and slots favorably alongside Dutch filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich’s Position Among the Stars. That nonfiction film charted the tumultuous ups and downs of an extended Indonesian family trying to work their way out of the slums, but did so with an artfulness that approached heart-stopping. Lieberman’s movie casts a broader net, and his technique isn’t as honed, but it achieves a similar spell in its best moments. They Call It Myanmar features smart, light musical contributions which underscore the film’s sense of latent prosaic wonderment, and its visits to religious temples and other sites are amazing.
While going out of its way to point out the unusual (and perhaps more insidious) nature of the oligarchic control of Burma’s isolationist military dictatorship — which doesn’t rely on a cult of personality — They Call It Myanmar also illustrates the gap between populace and regime, which is a dignified goal and achievement. For those with an interest in the world at large, and especially the challenges inherent in abetting democracy in developing countries, this is an absorbing work. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. For more information on the movie, meanwhile, click here. (Photosynthesis Productions, unrated, 83 minutes)
Daily Archives: September 29, 2012
The Waiting Room
Hit small screen series like ER, Chicago Hope and Grey’s Anatomy have for years wrung drama out of gunshot wounds, helicopter crashes, siege stand-offs and all manner of exotic diseases — as well as, of course, by cycling through various super-charged romantic couplings that occasionally make its characters seem just like slightly more erudite but no less sexed-up members of some lost season of The Real World. What happens in a real public hospital emergency room, however? That’s the focus of the stirring, verité-style documentary The Waiting Room.
Directed by Peter Nicks, this raw, character-driven movie unfolds at Oakland’s Highland Hospital, the primary care facility for 250,000 citizens, about 250 of which — most of them uninsured — crowd its emergency room every day and night. It’s perhaps shot over the course of a couple days, but constructed to basically track as one single 24-hour period, weaving together stories of a frightened girl stricken with a dangerous case of strep throat, a young man with a testicular tumor desperately in need of surgery, a blue collar laborer beset with chronic pain, a familiar addict caught in a hazy, frightening relapse, and many more.
There are also, of course, less serious ailments and issues (in addition to the obligatory collection of abusive patients), but among the most heartbreaking cases might be the steady stream of those with recurring health issues — victims of diabetes, and a guy who’s suffered a stroke a couple weeks prior, and now keeps falling down — who so obviously need more consistent, affordable care. This digs into the ugly reality of those who dismiss the need for national health care overhaul, and think that emergency rooms, as they now function, are a solid enough stop-gap. As a doctor points out, his job has a social as well as medical component; simple “bed math” must be considered, but when faced with discharging a stable but otherwise incapacitated patient who has literally no place to go, the greyness of morality looms.
The gut-punch effectiveness of Nicks’ film lies in its forthrightness, and how it avoids speechifying. There are no direct-address, sit-down interviews with the care providers — the film simply captures doctors and nurses’ interactions with patients, and then artfully layers on additional thoughts from the former by way of sparsely used voiceover. It ends, too, not with lengthy codas and grand statements, but merely the tribute to another day of human service and assistance. The result is at once gripping and terribly sad; time spent in this Waiting Room is emotionally obliterative. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. For more information on the movie, meanwhile, click here. (International Film Circuit, unrated, 83 minutes)