Burma’s
Mainland China-aligned military junta loved to rename things, starting with the
nation itself. Similarly, the region known as Kaw Thoo Lei by its ethnic Karen
population became the Karen state. In this case, you might credit the
government with some degree of honesty, since Kaw Thoo Lei means “peaceful
land.” Tragically, state-sponsored terrorism and ethnic cleansing have made the
region anything but peaceful. Survivors of the genocidal crimes tell their
stories in Martha Gorzycki’s experimental short documentary, Voices from Kaw Thoo Lei (trailer here), which screens
during the first ever Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.
Gorzycki
insists we focus on their testimony, so she strips away distractions that come
from talking head interviews. We will only hear audio of the speakers,
superimposed over eerie animated images generated from over ten thousand
black-and-white photos. They are mostly impressionistic rather than
representational, but they express a deeper truth about the state of human
rights in Burma.
As
you would expect, the stories are chilling and heartbreaking. At regular
intervals, the Burmese military would descend on Kaw Thaw Lei like locusts,
burning all the huts and food stores in sight. Women were raped and orphaned children
were left to fend for themselves in the rain forest.
You
cannot accuse Gorzycki of using cheap tactics to gin up sympathy. There are no
manipulative images of bloody corpses or crying children. Yet, we understand in
no uncertain terms such suffering frequently resulted from the
government-sponsored rampages.
