Full Frame 2009: The Camera Sees All in BURMA VJ

This weekend, the acclaimed documentary BURMA VJ won three prizes at Durham's Full Frame Film Festival, including the Grand Jury Prize.  Our co-conspirator Nathan Truesdell saw the film at February's True/False Film Festival and was amazed.  He filed this report:

Anders Østergaard's BURMA VJ is your typical story of renegade journalists risking their lives in order to document an attempted monk-led overthrow of a military junta, and, of course by that, I mean it's nothing like I've ever seen.

"Joshua" works for the Democratic Voice of Burma, an underground news organization dedicated to capturing illegal footage inside of Burma.  The footage is then smuggled to Thailand and beamed back to the country via satellite from Norway.  The DVB have around 30 volunteers that shoot with small, nearly-broken, hand-held cameras that they must keep hidden from the secret police that roam the streets.  The risk?  Life imprisonment.  The reward?  The education and organization of the people of Burma who have been oppressed by their government for the last 40 years.

Since foreign reporters are banned from the country (even the internet is shut down at one point), the cameras of the DVB become the only outlet showcasing the real action on the street.  Their lenses capture the voiceless and frightened despair as protesters are swept into trucks by undercover police.  When tens of thousands of monks are prompted by beatings to march in defiance, the DVB gains their trust and embeds themselves inside the group.  This feeds new hope into the people, and as the military organizes to stand up against the uprising, hundreds of thousands of citizens join the march.  The scene is breathtaking. 

Back-and-forth (recreated?) phone conversations between the cameramen and the shadow-hidden Joshua accompany the amazing footage to construct the narrative of the film.  It's extremely well-crafted and unfolds with edge-of-your-seat suspense as crowds clash with police, and the cameramen hide on rooftops and in stairwells to secure the best vantage point and to prevent being hit by stray bullets.  They're on the verge of being captured at almost every corner, and the gritty hand-held footage brings us breathtakingly close to the reality of the situation.  I was left feeling like I had just witnessed some of the most important footage ever captured.

Comments

[Pamela]

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[dragon]

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