Last Saturday, Andrea and I saw Rambo with the expectation that it would be a cheesy film. After watching the teaser trailer that the film treks across the Salween River into the jungles of Burma, I just had to watch it and see how accurate the movie depicts the forgotten conflict/genocide, or the as the film puts it, the world’s longest civil war.
Having crossed the Salween River into Burma myself, Andrea agreed to watch the film with me. Surprisingly, Rambo was quite good. Here’s why:
Rambo begins with clips of media and political commentaries about the humanitarian crisis in the country and the insidious micro- and macro-geopolitical tensions in Burma, and very briefly alludes to the protests spearheaded by the monks last September. The commentaries were of course juxtaposed with footages of burnt villages, rapes, human porters, landmine victims and the crackdown of political dissents; all of which are well documented by governments and NGOs such as the UNHCR, ASEAN, International Labour Organization (ILO), Human Rights Watch, U.S. State Department and etc.
The movie then shifts attention to its main character, Rambo… a soldier that has remained in Asia (never actually seen other Rambo movies, but I’m assuming he was fighting in Vietnam?) and remains lost and struggles to find his real identity other than a “killing machine”. He now resides in Mae Sot, Thailand doing odd jobs, and one day is approached by a group of pious American missionaries who hires Rambo to take them across the river deep inside Karen State to help the Karens, one of the larger ethnic groups that are fighting the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council), the name that the Burmese military government call themselves. Rambo drops them off once inside Burma and later finds himself rescuing them with a group of mercenaries who are expats living in Thailand.
This movie was emotionally difficult to watch, especially in scenes where the SPDC troops are attacking the Karen villages. Andrea even cried when the villages were sacked. As usual, the villages are burnt, women raped, children are often captured as slaves and forced into labour work by carrying their equipment with food or water (which is why the ILO has taken a lot of interest in Burma).
My impression of the film? Rambo should be saluted for his attempt to bring everyone attention to Burma’s genocide – a relevant topic that is often relegated as somebody else’s problem. The facts were for the most part accurate. For example, even the uniforms worn by the KNU (Karen National Union) rebels were Cambodian during the Pol Pot regime… good job there. The missionaries were a bit interesting. First, anyone (foreigners included) wanting to cross into Burma know you have to go in with the KNU for protection, which is what I did. Second, the dialogue between the missionaries and Rambo is symbolic of the two perspective on Burma. On the one hand, there are optimists who view that the situation in Burma will improve; on the other hand Rambo, the pessimists, strongly believe that Burma is lost forever given its strategic importance to its Chinese, Indian and Thai neighbours and the incompetencies of the US and the UN. I use to be an optimists, but after the end of my work there in 2005, and especially after the September 2007 revolution, I am now a pessimist.
Anyways, a good movie overall. Other than the cheesy lines by the missionaries it was not corny… that’s also because Rambo didn’t talk very much. The fighting scenes did not drag on and dominate the film, which is good.