Love Thy Neighbour
source :The Nation
BY PIMPAKA TOWIRA
VERY few movies, no matter how well produced, linger on in the minds of audiences. This is understandable: with so much creative celluloid on offer, film fans have the opportunity of flashing from one flick to the next with nary a thought for the former. Yet some subject matters portrayed on the silver screen are obviously close enough to our hearts to remain in our thoughts.
For proof that we still regard the Burmese as our enemy, look no further than the phenomenal success of Bang Rajan directed by Thanit Jitnukul.
The story relates the heroism of villager warriors who fought to their death against the Burmese army in the 1767 war. As of last week, the movie had grossed Bt135 million and is expected to hit the Bt150 marker shortly. Several people have sat through Bang Rajan more than once.
But while the governments of the West keep a close watch on Burma for reasons more related to politics and human rights, for the Thais the epic has served to revive strong sense a nationalism.
We all know the history of the Bang Rajan villagers - the story is contained in school textbooks, has been made into countless TV series and also turned into a fair number of movies.
Is our fascination with the movie entirely due to our hatred of the Burmese and nationalism?
According to certain academics, the answer is no. The reason why we have taken this film so much to heart, they say, has far less to do with nationalism than with timing. Most Thais, they believe, have sensed the same of despair as the villagers of Bang Rajan. They too have been abandoned by their government since the economic crash of 1997 and have found themselves alone in their fight to protect and keep their land.
No doubt, there is a certain amount of truth in this summing-up of the situation. But there's also a great deal of proof that the ugly face of nationalism has once again appeared. A number of movie-goers have expressed a strong dislike of the Burmese in the chat room of popular website /www.pantip.com/ after watching the movie.
This strong sense of nationalism and utter dislike of the Burmese reinforced by the latest incarnation of Bang Rajan is of concern to Thicha Na Nacorn of the Sahathai Foundation, a panel member at the recent seminar "Child Soldiers in Burma" hosted by Chulalongkorn University. She even went as far as to ask that the movie be banned because she was witnessing so much hatred towards the Burmese in her daily life.
Her cause, however, is unlikely to be helped by the Sittipong Kalyanee's documentary. With videos costing considerably less to produce, he is portraying the real image of Burma nowadays - and his overview is certainly not going to efface the Thai hatred of the Burmese.
His most recent video, No Childhood At All,filmed in 1995 but shown in Thailand for the first time during the seminar, shows children being recruited as soldiers, not only by Burmese military but also by the armies of the ethnic minorities in the country.The images of these young boys aged between 13 16 and the fright in their eyes prove that, all too often, children are the real victims of an adult war. The plight of these youngsters is rarely, if at all, exposed through mainstream movies. The public, it seems, is afraid to see the truth.
Sittipong is determined to expose the realities of the world. "The only feasible alternative media is video. It attracts more people than books or magazine articles," he says.
His own background has been mostly responsible for his passionate interest in ethnology. He has been making video documentaries for eight years for non-profit organisation Images Asia. And his aim is to expose controversial issues from the world over. But because Burma is under the gaze of the world - and, he admits, because of his strong relationship with its people and land, - most of his work has focused on the Kingdom's Western neighbour and its record of human rights abuses - child soldiers, women raped and beaten by SPDC (formerly known as the SLORC) troops, the 1996 student demonstrations in Rangoon and the ongoing cases of forced labour.
"I use media as a weapon to expose the problems in this country. They exist and we should show that they exist. We do not pass judgement. We don't drew conclusions about which side is right and which is wrong. Our aim is to inform and encourage organisations and individuals to put this information to good use."
On a number of occasions, his celluloid works have been used as testimony of the "Burmese problem". But the videos have rarely been screened in Thailand. "We have made them for the foreign market not for Thai market, because it's difficult to show them here," he says. "I'd like to make a Thai version, but it would be hard to find financial support."
He is aiming to finish the sequel to No Childhood At All in the near future. The documentary will include interviews with twins Johnny and Luther Htoo of God's Army, a group formed in Burma three years ago by members of various ethnic militia groups including Karen Christians, Buddhists and animists. The twins surrendered last month and are now in Thailand..
"I'd like to portray them as children who love to play in the same way as 'ordinary' children. The war between the Burmese and the ethnic minorities forces them to fight," he says.
Sittipong is not the only director interested in the ethnic minorities. Veteran actor and TV director Noppol Gomarachun didn't hesitate for a minute when Channel 7 offered him the chance to make a new TV action-drama, Keb Phaendin, a story inspired by the April 2000 Ratchaburi Hospital incident, reportedly carried out by one God's Army militia member and nine Burmese students .
When the surrender of the two young leaders of God's Army hit the front pages on the newspapers last month, Keb Phaendin's scheduled debut shot forward, replacing a planned screening of an RS Promotion series, and was aired on Mondays and Tuesday at peak viewing hours.The script for the Bt17 million production of Keb Phaendin is based on Pai Keb Phaendin Thi Sin Chart (Battle for the Lost Land), a well-researched book written by Noppol's partner, veteran actress and former first runner-up beauty queen, Preeyanuch Panpradub, under the pseudonym Nai Pan Dee.
However, to get round censorship problems and to avoid negative effects on Thai-Burmese relations, Keb Phaendin has been finely tuned into fiction. The series depicts an ethnic minority group called Kase, which is led by a young boy (Naka), and is fighting against the state government of Savin. The battlefield form the backdrop to a love story between a Kase man and a Thai woman, separated by nation boundaries and prejudice. Desperate for medicine to treat their wounded in this never-ending war, the Kase group seizes a hospital at the Thai border. To their credit, Noppol and Preeyanuch have done much to reveal the very real problems faced by an admittedly fictional ethnic minority group, unlike last year's TV drama series Kaew Klang Dong which followed standard format and showcased these tribes as stupid fools, unable to speak the Thai language correctly.
Like Sittipong, the couple also avoid passing judgement. Their aim, they say, is to encourage both sides to face up to and cope with their problems and to give an unbiased explanation to viewers.
"Producing the series was my way of letting these people talk. I do feel sympathy for them because they have no choice," says Noppol. "They are fighting to protect their land, just as others do. We should be able to understand that."
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'Bang Rachan' recalls the heroism of Thai resistance to Burma