Director – Maung Sun – 2020 – Burma – 98m
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The progress of a first time film director from whose production money seems to flee like a four-legged animal – in cinemas as part of the BFI London Film Festival 2021 from Wednesday, October 6th
An hilarious opening confronts film director Wai Bhone (Okkar (Dat Khe)) with the man from the Burmese censorship office, a bureaucrat with little sense of storytelling beyond the prohibitive. Lots of people are smoking. Could he tone down that word to furthermucker? Cut down the drinking scenes. We cannot let criminals escape. What is the point of this film? Then there are street scenes bursting into colour. All of this makes it into the attractive trailer.
On the set of his film, Wai is confronted by an actress who hasn’t learned her lines properly, so she’s reading them off her hand. Then there’s a location where a guard hasn’t turned up with the key to admit him and his crew. So he climbs over the wall with the camera only to get shut down by another guard. And his overly careless brother-in-law Zaw Wyint (Ko Thu) talks him into letting him appear in the film only to damage the camera when Zaw gets overenthusiastic about shooting a stunt.… Read the rest