More than a decade after his award-winning first fiction feature, The Maw Naing re-emerges with MA – Cry of Silence, in which he uses a sweatshop strike as a mirror of the multiple stand-offs that have occurred in Myanmar between the country’s powerful military junta and its long-suppressed population. While short on the inventive premise and original visual technique which made The Monk a festival hit in 2014, this multi-nationally co-produced entry in Busan’s New Currents competition remains vital in its depiction of the possibilities and perils of standing up against tyranny in the here and now.
Once upon a time, The Maw Naing’s characters were beset mostly by subtle spiritual concerns – the struggle for The Monk‘s protagonist was between a fulfilment of mortal desires and the attainment of enlightenment. It would be hard for the director to go down this slow-glowing path now, with the Myanmar people’s hopes for happiness all but dashed by the reinstatement of a full-on military dictatorship in February 2021. But something of that film from a decade ago has remained: just like The Monk, MA – Cry of Silence revolves around a young individual’s rite of passage, in this case a meek, long-suffering woman’s political awakening as she is forced to confront the brutal blows raining down on her peers from those higher up the food chain.
Written by Oh Young-jeong, who also serves as producer here, MA – Cry of Silence doesn’t broach post-coup Myanmar politics as explicitly as, say, the anonymously directed omnibus Myanmar Diaries or the work of Na Gyi and Paing Phyo Thu. Instead, economic exploitation is the evil here, its effects embodied in the life of Mi-thet (Su Lay).
For the rural-born woman who had moved to the city for a better life for her family, her new concept of home is one-third of a cramped room in a corrugated-iron shack. Work means long and demanding shifts at a textile factory overseen by a perverse foreman who wields an iron ruler with his right hand and molests his charges with his left. Through Ei Lay (Nwe Nwe Soe), a roommate who works as a maid for a former general, Mi-thet learns of the mountains of cash being passed from Chinese businessmen to local bigshots; at night, she hears endless commotion outside her dormitory, as thugs harass and pursue anyone they don’t seem to like.
Zaw Moe’s production design conjures up Mi-thet’s claustrophobic existence, with Tin Win Naing’s camerawork and Mathieu Farnarier’s sound design matching the excellent art direction step by step. An example? The cacophony evoked by the audio-visual montage of whirling electric fans and buzzing banks of sewing machines.
The oppressive tedium is soon broken as outspoken Nyein Nyein (Kawyt Kay Khaing) rallies her colleagues to put down their tools until the boss agrees to pay them the salary they are owed. Initially reluctant to join the protest, Mi-thet is soon stirred into action as she discovers Ei Lay’s suffering at the hands of her employer. But her epiphany has much to do with the friendship she strikes up with her recalcitrant neighbour U Thun (Ko Nanda) – a man whose scars betray Myanmar’s painful past, and whose vault of clandestine books provides Mi-thet with a pointer to the future.
U Thun’s recollections, supplemented by some brief archive footage of the deadly clampdown on a street demonstration in Yangon during the anti-dictatorship uprising in 1988, are the furthest The Maw Naing goes in referring directly to his country’s political situation. Then again, when the foreman berates the protesting workers for not being grateful for their lot, he sounds every bit like the deluded tyrants demanding subservience for the crumbs they throw at their people.
For those who have been following the news about Myanmar’s rapid slide towards oblivion in the past three years, Mi-thet’s fate is more or less preordained. As she says in the film, however, tragedy should be confronted by solidarity and resilience. Boasting stellar performances from its young cast, MA – Cry of Silence conveys its fiery spirit loudly and clearly.
Director: The Maw Naing
Screenplay: Oh Young-jeong
Cast: Su Lay, Kwayt Kay Khaing, Nay Htoo Aung, Ko Nanda
Producers: The Maw Naing, Oh Young-jeong
Cinematography: Tin Win Naing
Editor: Nicolas Bancilohn
Production designer: Zaw Moe
Sound designer: Mathieu Farnarier
Production companies: One Point Zero (Myanmar), Plus Point One (South Korea), Massala, Protocol, DUOfilm (Norway), Alpha Violet Production (France)
World sales: Alpha Violet
Venue: Busan International Film Festival (New Currents)
In Burmese
74 minutes
