Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country

The fact that Anders Østergaard’s documentary Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country exists at all is astonishing; that it is also a powerful and compelling work of art is miraculous. Pieced together from digital video footage smuggled out of the country either by hand or by satellite uplink, the film chronicles the civilian uprising against the Burmese military junta in September 2007. When hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest decades of oppression, the government responded with deadly force, cut off internet and phone service, and barred journalists from entering the country.  Were it not for the footage captured by Video Journalists working for the Democratic Voice of Burma, an underground pro-democracy group, the scope and severity of this response would have never been known.

The decision by the Buddhist monks of Burma to demonstrate against the government was the catalyst for the nationwide protests.  Similarly, the monks act as the galvanizing force and central protagonists in the film.  Watching devoted pacifists take up bullhorns and march through the streets barefoot in their saffron robes is electrifying, while the VJ’s footage is haunting in its immediacy:  Rather than stand at a safe distance, they usually chose to put themselves in the middle of the action.  Much of the film’s tension comes from knowing that the person being filmed and the camera operator himself are both in mortal danger, simply because they have decided to stand up and be heard.

It is impossible to watch this film without thinking about the tremendous challenge that Østergaard so successfully overcame.  Forced to shoot with consumer-grade cameras that had to be tucked into bags or otherwise hidden lest they be confiscated by the police, the Burmese VJ’s had little control over framing or camera movement, and it shows. Østergaard’s answer to this visual dilemma is brilliant:  Rather than use the tired technique of reenactment, he does something that could more accurately be described as restoration. While he cannot show "Joshua" (the pseudonym of the coordinator of the VJ’s) on camera, he can show him working at his computer in silhouette; while he does not have recordings of the actual phone calls Joshua made during the demonstrations, he can have him make the calls again, to confederates who are still in Burma. The end result is a seamless integration of the actual VJ footage and the more polished material Østergaard’s camera was able to capture much later.

The only minor misstep is in the music, which at times seems incongruously matched with the inherently gritty and desperate subject matter. That point aside, this is an inspiring film that handles matters of life and death with unpretentious lyricism.

                                       Orson Robbins-Pianka