State terror takes away all breathing space, Myanmar Diaries show

Since the military junta took power on February 1, 2021 and ended a short period of democracy, Myanmar’s military has been terrorizing its own people. More than 12,000 people have been arrested and at least 1,500 civilians have been killed in street protests. Those who can afford it flee the country.

In Myanmar Diaries shows the army crushing demonstrations and firing live ammunition. The bodies of injured or killed activists are left on the street. Another video, recorded on a telephone, shows a woman being arrested at home while her child begs the soldiers to leave her mother alone.

The shocking images of aggression and oppression, secretly filmed by citizen journalists, form the heart of the film, which also consists of a number of fictionalized portraits. The makers remain anonymous for safety’s sake; only the Amsterdam producers Corinne van Egeraat and Petr Lom are in the credits.

The mixture of fiction and documentary works well: the tranquil, often poetic fictional scenes are a welcome change from the violence in the street. Yet the feature film elements are often just as disturbing as the documentary part. In one of the portraits, a young woman does not return after going to protest, another shows a man who can no longer cope with his job as a police officer and wants to commit suicide. They are cleverly filmed tableaux of despair, with suffocation as the overarching theme.

State terror takes away all breathing space, let Myanmar Diaries see. Everyday life is dominated by the search for a way out. When that works, as in the fragment of a young woman who flees to Bangkok and ends up in quarantine there, the feeling of guilt takes over: can she abandon her family? What will happen to those left behind?

In addition to being a powerful reminder of the fragility of freedom, the film is also an appeal not to forget the violence in Myanmar. Battles are still being waged every day, by civilian militias, but in their own way also by film makers and artists. The greatest strength of Myanmar Diaries lies in the fact that the film could have been made at all.