"Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country"

By David Hudson on 05/20/2009

"Over the past several months, I've found that whenever someone asks me what is the best documentary I've seen in 2009 and I suggest 'Burma VJ,' they respond the way I did when I first heard the title after it made a big splash at IDFA: I thought it was the story of a monk rapper using hip-hop to preach his message of peace and tranquility unto the world." Michael Tully at Hammer to Nail: "To remove any confusion, let me make state this very clearly: 'Burma VJ' is a groundbreaking, pulse-pounding political thriller, which makes the most effective and intense Hollywood effort look like a glossy, artificial diversion."

It's also "a haunting reminder that the news can still be heroic--if only where it's expressly forbidden," writes Joseph Jon Lanthier in Slant. "A rather unlikely collaboration between Anders Østergaard, a Danish documentarian, and "Joshua," an exiled member of the Democratic Voice of Burma (a band of contumacious journalists who counter Myanmar government propaganda with satellite broadcasts from Thailand), the film collects several pieces of handi-cam coverage from the 2007 Burmese uprisings in an attempt to display both the staggering breadth of the nonviolent rebellion and the armored fist that squelched it."

"'Burma VJ' is a rich, thought-provoking film not only because of the story it tells, which is by turns inspiring and devastatingly sad, but also because of the perspective it offers on the role that new communications technologies can play in political change." AO Scott in the New York Times: "The viral videos of the Democratic Voice of Burma are like the hidden printing presses of earlier underground revolutionary movements, except that the portability of the cameras and the ease of Web and satellite-based distribution make them harder to suppress."

"[E]mbedded within this meta-testament to the brave Burmese souls who risk all is a reminder that, in our era of info overload (too much imagery, too many screens!), technology is the next-gen frontier for fighting oppression," writes David Fear in Time Out New York, also featuring an interview with Østergaard. "'I feel the world is forgetting about us,' Joshua declares. Then he points his pinprick lens, clicks his mouse and ensures the fight won't be swept under the collective rug.

For Filmmaker, Nick Dawson talks with Østergaard "about his penchant for reenactment, the blurring of the line between fiction and documentary cinema, and why he wishes he'd directed '2001: A Space Odyssey.'"

Earlier: AJ Schnack.

At Film Forum through June 2.

[Photo: "Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country"

Tags: Anders Østergaard, Burma VJ