Burma VJ: Reporter i et Lukket Land (Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country) (2008)
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Reviews Counted: 60
Fresh: 58 | Rotten: 2
A powerfully visceral docu-drama highlighting the evils of censorship and the essential need for freedom of speech.
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Critic Reviews: 18
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 1
A powerfully visceral docu-drama highlighting the evils of censorship and the essential need for freedom of speech.
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Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 1,414
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Movie Info
The Southeast Asian nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar) has been under the control of a military dictatorship since a coup toppled the elected prime minister in 1962. With Burma's press and mass media under the control of the military government, dissent has had little opportunity to take hold in the country, but that began to chance in 2007; a band of Buddhist monks stepped forward to lead a revolt against the state, and as news spread about their actions, as many as 100,000 people took
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All Critics (60) | Top Critics (18) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (2) | DVD (2)
Burma VJ celebrates the courage of the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a group of underground journalists who risked their lives to document the 2007 uprising against the junta.
Top CriticBurma VJ would be even more intense without its early announcement that some scenes have been restaged, putting the viewer in a regrettably uncertain relationship to what follows.
Narrated by a frightened journalist who trembles as he accumulates forbidden footage and provides a historical viewpoint, "Burma VJ" uses shocking video images and reconstructed scenes to create a coherent, mostly chronological account of what happened.
In traditional terms, this is hardly a film at all. It's more like a bootlegged YouTube video.
Although directed by Denmark's Anders Ostergaard, the true heroes of Burma VJ are the cadres of guerrilla video journalists who secretly filmed the junta's brutal suppression of the popular revolt in the fall of 2007.
An awe-inspiring documentary by Denmark's Anders Ostergaard that tracks how the news escaped in 2007 during Burma's civil uprising.
No matter how many times anyone tries to appropriate shaky camera techniques, they'll never recreate anything as real as a reporter fleeing heavily armed police.
Mesmerizing, Oscar-nominated inside look into the 2007 uprising via the cameras of 30 or so underground videographers who risked torture and prison to record the chaotic events surrounding the rebellion of Buddhist monks against the repressive military
...pummeling, electrifying
It's powerful, to be sure, but the most interesting scene is one in which two reporters discuss the impact of their work; are they really changing anything?
Events are movingly and fortuitously recorded here, but the world's attention has shifted to other media moments.
If it is rather more interesting as a social and political document than a cinematic one, well, politics and society can be important, too.
The word 'brave' is thrown around too liberally in Hollywood. The folks behind Burma VJ are the bravest souls you'll see on screen this year.
the footage, with the picture jumping as frenetically as the protesters being filmed, brings home as nothing else quite can the energy and the danger of the events depicted
Ostergaard could have just thrown this together like coleslaw and Burma VJ still would be an important documentary.
Watching these brave amateurs is pretty compelling, which is a good thing.
Watch this and you will long remember Burma - and briefly join a revolution.
Demonstrates what can be done through the ingenious use of small cameras and mobile phones by brave, resourceful opponents of repressive regimes, and it deserves to be shown widely.
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Latest News on Burma VJ: Reporter i et Lukket Land (Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country)
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Foreign Titles
- Burma VJ (DE)
- Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country (UK)
