February 28, 2010: Burma VJ
Burma VJ made me feel like a bad person. Here we have groundbreaking video footage smuggled out of Burma, depicting the mistreatment of monks during a protest in 2007, in a place where journalism is actually illegal. The world is seeing for the first time a crack in the armour of the government’s oppressive regime. And yet I felt strangely unmoved. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t in the mood, or it was late at night, or I’m desensitized to the cruelty in the world and how everyone can just turn their heads and ignore violence and human rights violations. But it somehow didn’t click.
How can such basic rights violations and closed societies still exist today? Well, they do. I need to credit Burma VJ with opening my eyes to this. Nominated for an Oscar as the best documentary feature, it did not win the award. I don’t even have much more to say about the film. I would not recommend against it, but I’m also not suggesting that anyone rush out to see it.
My heartlessness makes some documentaries unmoving.
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