Burma VJ: Reporter i et Lukket Land (Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country) poster & wallpaper
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Armed with pocket-sized video cameras, a tenacious band of Burmese reporters face down death to expose the repressive regime controlling their country. In 2007, after decades of self-imposed silence, ...( read more  read more... )Burma became headline news across the globe when peaceful Buddhist monks led a massive rebellion. More than 100,000 people took to the streets protesting a cruel dictatorship that has held the country hostage for more than 40 years. Foreign news crews were banned, the Internet was shut down, and Burma was closed to the outside world. So how did we witness these events? Enter the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), aka the Burma VJs. Compiled from the shaky handheld footage of the DVB, acclaimed filmmaker Anders Ostergaard's Burma VJ pulls us into the heat of the moment as the VJs themselves become the target of the Burmese government. Their tactical leader, code-named Joshua, oversees operations from a safe hiding place in Thailand. Via clandestine phone calls, Joshua dispenses his posse of video warriors, who covertly film the abuses in their country, then smuggle their footage across the border into Thailand. Joshua ships the footage to Norway, where it is broadcast back to Burma and the world via satellite. Burma VJ plays like a thriller, all the more scary because it is true.

Flixster Users

94% liked it

422 ratings

Critics

96% liked it

47 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 24 min.

Directed by: Anders Østergaard

Release Date: November 12, 2008

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Flixster Reviews (53)

  • kofax32
    November 30, 2009
    kofax32
    Wow! This film kept my attention the entire time. Considering what the reporters risked to show the world this footage, it is a must see...
  • anospi
    September 4, 2009
    anospi
    A fantastic look at the protests in Burma during 2007. The footage of the monks protesting is truly moving. A terrific documentary.
  • ZlatkoGR
    March 24, 2009
    ZlatkoGR
    A story about freedom, activism and citizen journalism like no other. It happened, 2 years ago, in a country far away from Greece, but it should be heard everywhere...
  • jr139
    February 6, 2009
    jr139
    This is just a camera. It's just a plastic case with some circuits, wires, and chips inside. At its most basic level, this camera collects light through its glass lens, translates it into an image, and prints it onto a mini-DV tape. Pretty cut and dry. But, whatever is record...( read more)ed onto that camera becomes information. Information can inspire the uninspired, it can strike fear into the strong, it can shatter silence and secrets, and it can change the world. In the hands of "Joshua," the unseen journalist and narrator of Burma VJ, all of this is accomplished. From director Anders Ostergaard, Burma VJ documents the struggles of the DVB, the Democratic Voice of Burma, an underground affiliation of amateur journalists who risk imprisonment and death to let the world know of the severe oppression taking place in Burma, a military controlled country in Southeast Asia that has suppressed its citizens' freedoms and completely forbidden access to the media. Joshua and his DVB comrades are forced to hide and operate in secrecy, but that doesn't stop them from using their cameras to tell their stories. In the hands of Ostergaard, Joshua's footage becomes a resonant narrative, an inspiring tale of dedication in the face overwhelming odds, and a testimony to the power of the media.

    Joshua's story begins in 1988. Though he was only a child then, he remembers when civil unrest led to pro-democracy demonstrations in the streets, primarily led by students fed up with the economic mismanagement and political oppression of the government. Led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the masses thought that their numbers would force the government to change. Instead, the military responded by slaughtering over 3000 demonstrators and putting Kyi under house arrest that forbade anyone from seeing her to this very day. Though an election in 1990 was overwhelmingly won by The National League for Democracy (winning 392 out of a total 489 seats), the military government led by the State Law and Order Restoration Council refused to step down and annulled the results. Ever since then, the military government has maintained an iron-fisted grip on the country, not hesitating to execute demonstrators and refusing to allow news broadcasts they do not control.

    It is for this reason that Joshua and other members of the DVB are forced to hide their mini-DV cams in bags, under their armpits, or anywhere they won't be noticed while trying to capture the daily suppression of human rights and freedoms. Headquartered in Oslo, Norway, the DVB receives the footage carefully smuggled out of the country by reporters like Joshua and broadcasts it all over the world. Though they are only a handful of men, their footage has been shown to millions of viewers via the BBC. The more news is leaked, the more the government denies it and the more they crack down on the bold journalists they capture. After a close call during one protest, Joshua is forced to escape to Thailand where he has to deal with not being in the field and settles instead for coordinating his friends and fellow cameramen back in Burma.

    In 2007, Burmese monks decided they could no longer live with the oppression of innocent civilians. They began to stage public demonstrations and marches of their own and the excitement and joy experienced by Joshua and his DVB colleagues by the news is palpable and infectious for us, the audience. Everyone believes that the government wouldn't dare exercise lethal force against hundreds of innocent religious figures, especially within a country so heavily accenting spirituality, and the monks lead a march supported by over 100,000 citizens that results in the first government allowed public appearance of Aung San Suu Kyi in over a decade. For a while, everything seems to be playing out just like a movie - but this is real life, not fiction and instead of budging, the Burmese government responds as they always have and slaughtered or arrested every monk that demonstrated. The whereabouts of those arrested are still unknown. In an unprecedented and outrageous string of events, Burmese military forces even executed an innocent Japanese journalist at point blank range.

    As of 2008, the DVB journalists in Burma have disbanded, their headquarters having been raided by the government, and Joshua is trying to recruit new reporters. He has been forced to stay in hiding, his face never being shown in the documentary, and he admits that the demonstrations of 2007 morosely reminded him of the fruitless attempts in 1988. Still, the fact that he wishes to return to doing what he feels must be done is unspeakably awe-inspiring and a testament to the determination of the human spirit when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The story in Burma VJ is one that writes itself in regards to how the tension builds and builds until it explodes, but Joshua's personal touch and the revealing footage from he and his colleagues helps open our eyes to atrocities we were never aware of previously. It would seem at the end of the film that the situation is no more hopeful than it was decades ago, but those who would conclude such things are only looking at the surface. True, the DVB headquarters was raided, but the defiance of a handful of journalists have spawned imitators all over the country included 60 new underground DVB cameramen. Time may work in their favor as well as more advanced mobile and telecommunication technologies will mean that the Burmese government will have to try and block more means for the DVB to get their message out of the country. True, no problems in Burma have yet been solved, but that's encouraging when one of those unsolved problems is how to block the flow of information.

View All Burma VJ: Reporter i et Lukket Land (Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country) Reviews

Critic Reviews

July 17, 2009
Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times

Anders Ostergaard's documentary mixes a small amount of re-enactment - scenes of the Thai-based boss co-ordinating action by phone - with large amounts of scary, shocking or in some cases infamously c... full review

June 18, 2009
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

Even as the news-gathering apparatus in the US and elsewhere falters under the weight of new technology and outdated business models, Burma VJ is a fresh reminder that reporters can and must serve as ... full review

May 19, 2009
A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Burma VJ is a rich, thought-provoking film not only because of the story it tells, but also because of the perspective it offers. full review

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