Our Burmese Days

This documentary is an attempt by the director, Lindsey Merrison to explore the roots of Sally and Bill, her mother and uncle respectively. Sally is Burmese but her daughter never found out about her roots until adulthood because Sally never revealed or talked about her origins and her ethnicity. She always maintained that she was from Hempstead in London; even speaking with a solid English accent.

With this film, the director brings her mother and her uncle back to Myanmar in order to explore their pasts, their heritage and exactly why Sally is so ashamed to admit that she comes from Myanmar. For Bill, the trip was poignant as he reminisces about the times they spent in Myanmar but Sally on the other hand seemed pained to relive all her memories of Myanmar.

The only aspects at which the film succeeds are showing how the people of rural Myanmar live from a very raw and real point of view as well as showing the audiences a bit of Myanmar’s past. But in trying to achieve a documentary that is free of glossiness and a general feeling of an outsider’s point of view, Merrison’s film has fallen flat. It is dull, detached and frankly, very self-conceited. There are plenty of shots and moments in the film that felt to me, out of place and very unnecessary; as if inserted solely to show audiences how smart or sharp or sentimental a director Merrison truly is. Like a classroom full of students who believe that asking mundane and/or inane questions will lead the lecturer to think that they are intelligent, Merrison seems to think that lingering shots of nothing in particular or lengthy monologues and conversations about dull subjects will trick audiences into thinking that she is indeed a “Serious” filmmaker delving into “Serious” issues.

It also doesn’t help matters that Sally, the subject of the documentary is so thoroughly unlikable. Her cold English manner, her refusal to open up to her daughter and her shame in her heritage – which the documentary doesn’t justify – is just off-putting. There were moments that showed her tender side but they were rare and far between.

Merrison also inserted images of war into the film as well as hinted at the politics of Myanmar but there are no deeper, profound follow-ups into either. It feels as though she is trying to do too much but at the same time saying far too little. Like the saying goes, the Jack of all trades is a master of none.