Meet Midi Z, Burma encapsulated

In 2011, by chance I met independent Burmese film director, Midi Z, in Mandalay, where he was making his first feature film, Return to Burma, illegally and without funding. Midi Z has recently released his second feature film, Poor Folk. In the interim period, his ascending career has mirrored the trajectory of change in Burma, as he too has attracted international attention and legitimation. The content of his films, however, continues to reflect the numerous social, political and economic obstacles that still afflict Burma.

It was very peaceful, in the shadow that spread like spilled ink along the teak deck, under the lip of the elaborate wooden roof. Perching on a small wall, I stared past my blackened bare feet, into the darkness behind an empty doorway. Inside, Burmese actor Shin-Hong Wang sat sedately, cross-legged on the floor, conversing intensely with two women. Despite the serenity of the setting, both were visibly nervous. One woman, who looked very old, clung tightly to the broom she used to sweep the temple floor, her fingers wound tightly around its willowy handle. The other, younger woman had flung hers recklessly down, across the boards. She seemed to regret this now, anxiously twisting her wiry arms together and turning her big, bowl like eyes frequently to the floor. Behind a single camera, director Midi Z zoomed in on the small group.

This took place in February 2011. I had met Midi Z and his tiny cast and crew, in the city of Mandalay, where they were making his first feature film, Return to Burma. This documents the impotence of democracy in the country in the wake of the 2010 general election, which was boycotted by the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy; it shows just how little had changed for normal people. Reflecting this, free speech was still so restricted that the film had to be made illegally, ‘under the radar’, lest the footage be confiscated and the team punished for producing an unflattering portrayal of the regime.

On this occasion, there seemed to be a tacit understanding between the film makers and the women (or ‘non-professional actors’, as Midi Z refers to the normal people he frequently absorbs into his narratives) that, despite the risks, this interview was a necessary ordeal. In Burma, exercising free speech, whenever the opportunity arises, seems to be a duty that everybody feels, because of the repression they experience, rather than despite it. In this way, they can refuse to be powerless. Midi Z was facilitating this.

After several weeks of filming, the team had become adept at working surreptitiously, but in Mandalay they had to be particularly careful. As Midi Z explained later, not only had they acquired a far more conspicuous team member, in me, but they were also filming in the palace grounds and several temples around the city. Legally this required permits they couldn’t acquire, and there was a heavy police presence to enforce this.

I wondered if their apparent fearlessness was bolstered somewhat by the fact that Shin-Hong and Midi Z lived in Taiwan now. They had an air of immunity about them. In many ways they were like me, protected, to an extent, by being foreign. However, the authenticity of Return to Burma results from the fact that neither Shin-Hong nor Midi Z are really foreigners. Both were born in Burma and, just like in the story, they had returned to see if anything had changed. Using the power which their Taiwanese identity cards bequeathed them, they were able to channel the frustrations of growing up surrounded by poverty and injustice into something they could take back out again, and show to true outsiders.

Later Shin-Hong offered to smuggle me into Bagan in the back of their truck, dodging the junta tourist fee. Although he acquiesced, Midi Z was less enthusiastic. His focus was immovably on making the film, and his determination to tell a story shows in his insightful work, as much as in the fact that it was made at all.

A year after this, Return to Burma premiered in Europe at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, before being screened in many other cities around the world and nominated for a number of awards.

Recently I met Midi Z again, this time in London, at the closing night gala of the Pan-Asia Film Festival. I had just watched his second feature film, Poor Folk. Shin-Hong, meanwhile, was in Osaka, promoting Poor Folk there. Evidently, much had changed for them, following the success of Return to Burma, and, likewise, much has changed for Burma.

Poor Folk was released almost exactly a year after a second set of elections, in April 2012. The main opposition party, the NLD, won 43 of the 44 seats they were allowed to contest- a small but significant victory. Consequently many sanctions have been removed, and Burma is beginning to be transformed. However, Poor Folk documents the persisting poverty in Burma, and the subsequent desperation that make human trafficking and people smuggling prevalent, particularly along the borders. It demonstrates that many people remain untouched by any improvements.

I asked Midi Z how things had changed, in his opinion, since Return to Burma, and he explained that things were very different for him, but this was due primarily to the success of his first film. Later, he elaborated on this, “it’s changing very quickly,” he said, “for the economy I think it’s very good, it’s improving in a positive way. But for film-making, for the lower class, nothing is changing; it’s just changing for businessmen”.

Midi Z secured coveted European funding to make his second feature film. Because of this, Poor Folk includes a CGI crashed plane and professional cast members. Yet it also, again, includes many ‘non-professional’ actors. Again, Midi Z wrote, directed and shot the film and Shin-Hong co-stars, albeit beside Taiwanese stage actress Wu Ke-Xi. Wu Ke-Xi, however, was taken thoroughly out of her comfort zone in making Poor Folk. She spent a year learning the dialect spoken in the film, and almost three months living on the border, where she was known by her character’s name, San Mei. She was also expected to improvise frequently while filming. Perhaps because of this, Poor Folk is pervaded by the same feeling of authenticity as Return to Burma.

Of course, not everybody appreciated the lingering cinematography as I did; in the cinema, the man behind me fell asleep and snored throughout the second half of the film. At the end, he asked why each shot was so long, and the action so slow. Midi Z explained that he had wanted to juxtapose a dramatic plot with an honest portrayal of the drudgery of daily life in the poverty stricken border towns. This, he argued, is how tragedy really happens, interspersed with boredom; with eating, and driving and talking and sitting.

The same man, the sole dissenter among an enthralled audience, asked if there was a point to the film, or if it was self-indulgent. The film, Midi Z explained, was inspired by the many people, including friends and cousins, that he had watched smuggled or trafficked into Thailand, Taiwan and Malaysia, while he was growing up in Lashio in Northern Burma. “I am very lucky”, he said repeatedly, “to have been able to study abroad legitimately”. He was able to do this only through a Taiwanese government initiative, which allows the ‘obviously’ Chinese overseas to sit an examination, and to study in Taipei if they succeeded in this. Midi Z’s grandfather is Chinese.

Like Return to Burma, Poor Folk, considered in this context, appears to be a vessel for other people to present their small lives and normal tragedies to the otherwise ignorant outside world. In keeping with this, the English title was inspired by a Burmese man Midi Z met working illegally as a tour guide in Thailand. He passed his time reading Tolstoy stories, and his favourite was called Poor Folk.

In the cinema, the audience listened intently as Midi Z described this. Inspired, someone asked: ‘Do your friends in Burma like it?’ Midi Z answered immediately that no, of course they didn’t; they thought it was accurate, but they liked Jackie Chan films. To me, this was uncomfortably poignant. Perhaps the ‘point’ of Poor Folk is to illustrate the inequality that leaves many of us privileged enough to want to watch something so unsettling, while those it depicts just want to escape.