Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country

It's a nightmarish situation, and stories of true heroism are intertwined with stories of utter horror and outrage. Director Anders Ostergaard wisely takes an extremely "hands off" approach, letting the reporter "Joshua" speak for himself with his footage and narration. He does add a score, but it's very subdued and appropriate. This is a powerful and memorable film about people's ability to rise up and speak out, and an oppressive government's ability to crush them.

I intensely dislike stylization in documentaries, and although I see how it has been necessary here, it's still irritating. The story is 'Hotel Rwanda' all over again. You might watch it and feel truly appalled, but at the end of that day, the sad state of affairs is that the world just doesn't give a shit. This documentary shames me - and I love it for it.

Been a while since PSI was this correct (86), but it's well deserved. Also, it's been a while since I saw a doc that was SO well organised (opposite, say, AFR). The clear-cut choices work ever so well: as a viewer you're so well engaged with everyone, from the stranger in the street to the main characters that you never meet. Impressive that you feel so involved, so quickly. And then, most importantly, this is indeed a story that needs to be told. It's potent and - beyond imagination - shocking.

Very one-sided film about the former country known as burma and the transition to the current country Myanmar. While it is accepted that the current Myanmar ruling government is harsh, Burma wasn't much better. There is a lot of focus on Buddhists however most of Myanmar's Buddhist population do not practice actual Buddhism; rather a twisted theocratical version of deist worship, like Tibet. The replacing religious enslavement with militant repression is not truly documented here.

Astonishing. Raw and vital journalism that matters.

Powerful stuff. the big question is, why the hell hasn't the rest of the worlds countries sorted it?

Can't say I knew anything about events portrayed beforehand. I recall something about much more recent Rohingya ethnic cleansing, and I read a bit of Wikipedia after watching this docu. It seems these protests led to some sort of reforms. Some sort of democracy was established and now that woman to whose house monks went lead an opposition party. This film is mainly about video-journalists, who shot and smuggled most of the footage of the protests to western media. Inspiring, but lacks context.

It can be tough at times to tell which scenes were re-enacted and which weren't, though in the end the impact is only slightly dulled as the most important and infuriating scenes are undoubtedly legitimate. Knowing as little as I do about the situation in Burma/Myanmar it's tough for me to get everything I can out of this but it's enough to see the plight of a repressed people be so violently and mercilessly attacked by their own government to make the blood boil. DVB are heroes.

The demonstrations became repetitive. Couldn't get into it and, as always, what I rate is my experience, not importance, skill or anything else.

My only complaint is they did not indicate which scenes were re-constructed and which were genuine. Some of the scenes were incredibly moving in particular because I thought they were real footage, but I would feel deceived if they turned out to be re-constructed scenes. Apparently they re-enacted some of the street protest scenes in Chiang Mai, and one of the last scenes of the DVB headquarters being ransacked is also a re-enactment - but you wouldn't know it.

Will enrage you while at the same time breaking your heart. Everyone involved in filming and joining the protests themselves is so incredibly brave that it makes me feel ashamed of being such a lazy pussy, living in comfort and without any true fear.

Suffers a bit from the lack of any truly memorable images and underdeveloped context, but the content is important enough and the film easy enough to watch that it has to be recommended.

Required viewing.

11.06.2010: Awww! My eyes still hurt.. Outstanding piece of work. Their bravery is outstanding.. The country's going to have an election in a few months, which after the devastating ending, made me smile a little.

Disturbing. Østergaard handles the intense material to perfection with suddlety and a plain score.

A hard movie to rate. The footage is quite poorly put together but the message is very important and everyone should see this.

Everyone should see this!