In Films on Burma, Afghanistan, Moviegoers Share Journalists’ Burdens
Sunday, October 04, 2009 06:39:38 PM

BANGKOK (Asia Media Forum) — Stunned silence and tears. These were two common responses by viewers who watched two full-length documentaries about the perils of journalism at the Bangkok International Film Festival 2009, which ended Wednesday in the Thai capital.

It is not difficult to draw parallelisms between 'Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country' and 'Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi'. Both films dwell on events that took place in 2007 and both featured the dangers journalists face when covering conflict situations in the region.

Both films, too, showed a human face to the Fourth Estate and gave the public a glimpse of the vulnerabilities of journalists who want to report the truth yet become victims of an uncaring and indifferent system. Both films depict a government's inability or refusal to protect basic human rights.

Helmed by Danish director Anders Østergaard, 'Burma VJ' follows the events leading to the uprising led Buddhist monks in the South-east Asian country in September 2007. The film features Burmese video journalist 'Joshua' (a pseudonym) and his team of underground reporters who slipped into the military state to cover the growing unrest.

Joshua and his team are reporters of the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma, which broadcasts material back into the country using satellite radio.

The faint stirrings of the uprising, not seen since the bloody 1988 protests that left more than 3,000 Burmese students dead, began after the government announced a fuel price hike in mid-August. A few weeks later, the monks made their presence felt and demanded that the junta listen to the people's pleas for democracy and reconciliation.

Scenes depicting the peaceful march of thousands of monks in Rangoon in September 2007 were actual footage shot by the DVB journalists on the ground, and distributed to international news networks. These were interspersed with reconstructed conversations between Joshua, who monitored the events from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, and the rest of the team.

"I was not safe anymore so I had to leave Burma and go to Chiang Mai," narrated Joshua in the film, after being questioned by secret agents after he was caught with a camera during a fuel price-hike rally. He was let go but his camera was confiscated.

Most of the scenes were filmed secretly. Thus, shaky shots abound and more than once, cameras were hastily put back in backpacks while still on, and only ambient sounds can be heard.

But more than the technique employed in the documentary, it was the sense of hope and despair among the people supporting the demonstration — and the journalists themselves — that made an impact on the viewers.

"It's all about relating, that you can relate to Burma's conditions somehow, that we can make the things, the thoughts these guys have and what they're going through, universal rather than being exotic...," explained the director in an interview with the Independent Film Channel (IFC) early this year, when the movie started making the international film circuit rounds.

Indeed, the audience connected with many scenes in the documentary. A middle-aged Burmese lady couldn't help but cry silently in her seat as she watched scenes of monks marching barefoot on the streets, chanting prayers as a huge crowd applauded loudly. A Caucasian couple let out muffled gasps upon seeing the bloody and bruised body of a monk lying face down in shallow water days after the violent dispersal of protesters.

Majority of the audience — it was a full house — stayed glued to their seats long after the end credits rolled by, reflecting on what they just witnessed.

Images of violence will be hard to forget. Monks being dispersed by teargas, their maroon robes torn away from their bodies by aggressive soldiers. Secret agents trying to pick up DVB reporters but were prevented from doing so by monks who locked arms to protect the journalists, and a soldier shooting Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai pointblank at the violent dispersal on Sep. 27.

"I feel something has broken and can never be repaired," said Joshua after learning of the Sep. 27 events and the subsequent raid of DVB's headquarters in Rangoon in December 2007.

But whatever fellowship was broken he vowed to repair, as shown in the last scene where Joshua crossed the border into Burma to begin the difficult and dangerous task of building his network again.

Similarly, Ian Olds' documentary, 'Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi', depicts the brutality of war and the high price journalists have to pay for doing their jobs. The film starts chillingly enough, showing the video of kidnapped Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo pleading for his life. A voice in the background interpreting the Taliban captors' demands was replayed again and again as a text appeared on screen saying, "This is the voice of the journalist's fixer. He will be murdered."

On Mar. 6, 2007, 24-year-old Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi was kidnapped, along with Mastrogiacomo and their driver, by Taliban militants. In early April, Mastrogiacomo was released. Naqshbandi, after the Afghan government's refusal to further negotiate for his release, was beheaded.

The film, via via raw footage taken by a U.S. news crew as well as those released by the Taliban, introduces viewers to the life of Naqshband, his enthusiasm for his profession, his concerns and his views about the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. Jokingly referred to as "the bext Afghan fixer" there is by journalist Christian Parenti, Naqshbandi takes his job seriously.

A fixer guides and facilitates interviews between foreign journalists and the locals. A fixer accompanies his foreign counterpart, sources interviewers, and also acts as an interpreter.

"This is not Afghanistan's war," said Naqshbandi to Parenti in a video flashback six months before he was killed, referring to the interests of the coalition forces, with the public being caught in the middle.

Asked what he thought of the Taliban militants, Naqshbandi said that it's "a very complicated matter" but that he believed that they would not kill a fellow Muslim. "We are in the hands of Muslims... God willing, there will be no problems," he was taped as saying while being held by the militants.

In the same manner that the Burmese monks and the DVB journalists had hoped that they would not be harmed by fellow Buddhist soldiers, so too did Naqshbandi. He believed that he would be protected by his and the Taliban militants' belief system.

He does, of course, recognise the danger he is exposed to. "This work is very dangerous, I bring one enemy to meet another," he was quoted as saying months before he was kidnapped.

Like 'Burma VJ', 'Fixer' gives the audience a fresh perspective about the conflict situation there via the earnest views of Naqshbandi, who tried to explain to his foreign counterparts the complex beginnings of the Taliban and the convoluted relationship between the militant group, the Afghan government, neighbouring Pakistan and the public.

The most harrowing scenes in the film were those of actual footage of beheadings which, while blocked out from view, brought home the point of the callousness of war and those who engage in them.

Naqshbandi's friend, photographer Teru Kuwayama, described the militants as "Orcs out of the Lord of the Rings'.

Naqshbandi's father, who pleaded with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to agree to the Taliban's demands in exchange for his son's life, completely lost his trust in the government upon hearing of the news of Haqshbandi's death.

"Our government is a puppet regime, a government of foreigners," he said, not quite believing that the government that facilitated the release of the Mastrogiacomo would not lift a finger for his son's freedom.

As in 'Burma VJ', the audience that watched 'Fixer' stared fixedly on the screen as the film ended, as if they too carried the heavy burden of an unwanted war. (Lynette Lee Corporal)


Link: http://www.theasiamediaforum.org/node/3028