Shot (beautifully) under the censors’ radar, this semi-autobiographical, semi-documentary by a young expatriate Chinese-Burmese director provides a uniquely close encounter with life in Myanmar/Burma.
Independent fiction films shot in Burma are rare indeed. One filmed by a Chinese-Burmese minority director like Midi Z is unprecedented.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2012
Return to Burma 2011
Gui lai de ren
Shot (beautifully) under the censors’ radar, this semi-autobiographical, semi-documentary provides a uniquely close encounter with life in an ethnic Chinese community in beleaguered Myanmar/Burma.
Shin-hong is a Burmese labourer who, like many of his compatriots, has worked in construction in Taipei for ten years. He returns home to deliver the ashes of his friend. As he encounters friends and family he sounds out the prospects of earning a livelihood and observes, with the dry humour of the resigned, just how meagre the options in Burma are. The burgeoning black market in goods smuggled from China offers his brightest hope.
While sanctioned pop songs fill the air with jubilant assertions of government enlightenment, first-time director Midi Z adapts a classical style to tell the opposite story. His arrestingly framed long takes reveal the decrepit infrastructure and distil the stifled, restive energies bestirring a society in stagnation. — BG
PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY TAIPEI ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL OFFICE