The Lady (Luc Besson, 2011): USA

Reviewed by Li Peyron. Viewed at the AFI Fest 2011.

The Lady I had no expectations at all. I have never been the one to read the papers in the morning so the situation in Burma isn’t something I was to learned about.But this movie blew my mind. It was such a beautiful story based on a true story.

I went to see this movie at the AFI Fest at the Chinese Theater. And I was so impressed to see that two of the actors (Michelle Yeoh, David Thewlis) from the movie and the director (Luc Besson) were there, standing in front of the audience presenting this movie.

As for the leading roll of Aung San Suu Kyi Michelle did an excellent job. The passion she had in her eyes during the movie was incredible. It was like she almost didn’t have to say anything and we would still understand the different scenes.

The movie begins with a little girl and her father. You can see the mom standing against the house, crying. The father wears an army suit and its obvious he is going somewhere. The little girl smiles towards her father while he is putting a flowers in her hair. An army car drives up by the house that located by a river, the man who drives the car gives the father a signal that it is time to go. He hugs his daughter for the last time and then walks straight to the army car without looking back.

The little girl, who we learn to be Aung San Suu Kyi, grows up without her father who got killed by the Regime. She is now living with her husband and two sons in England. It is when she suddenly gets a phone-call from Burma, telling her that her mother had a stroke, that she jumps on the plane, back to her home country. While there, the local people tells her that she is the only one that can help their country from the Regime. Her father turned out to be against the Regime and was fighting against it until he died. She decides to give it a chance. She struggles a lot, being away from her family is hard for her but she feels a certain responsibility to help her country from the evilness that the regime stands for.

The acting in this movie is incredible. I can really feel the pain from the local people and from the actors. And since it is a real story it just gets more intense. I love that they shot the whole movie in Thailand and in Burma, it makes it more real to what happened.

So, would I encourage people to go see this movie? Absolutely. In fact, I think its so important that everybody goes to see it. Its important and valuable that we get more involved because the situation in Burma is still terrible. Aung San Suu Kyi sat in house-arrest for 15years and 2010 she became free. For now. But that was just last year!? Isn’t that crazy that we just let this happened. I’m so happy I saw this film because now I feel like I want to help Burma. I might not be able to change the whole country, but if we all would get involved to make it a country of freedom I know it would work.

This movie made such an impression on me, I actually went home and cried after. That’s how affected I got.