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Burmese soldiers police the estate of Aung San Suu Kyi
(Michelle Yeoh), who is under house arrest. |
The Lady
Directed by Luc Besson
Written by Rebecca Frayn
Starring Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis
By Mary Lyn Maiscott
I knew little about the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi—recently elected to the parliament of Burma (also referred to as
Myanmar)—before seeing Beyond Rangoon
in 1995. In that movie, the main character, played by Patricia Arquette,
stumbles into, while on vacation, the violent upheaval taking place in Burma.
At one point, standing in a crowd, she sees Suu Kyi, the hope of the oppressed
Burmese people, walking toward her; the older woman, with a Mona Lisa smile,
gazes at her in a way that seems to impart an otherworldly serenity. (Indeed, my husband, fellow blogger
Robert Rosen, was similarly affected by our filmic encounter with Suu Kyi—he
talked about the value of serenity for months afterward.)
The new biopic The
Lady (its title echoing Suu Kyi’s honorific in her native country) contains a
similar scene, only this time the stakes are much higher: With Gandhian
courage, Suu Kyi (Michelle Yeoh), the epitome of grace under pressure, slowly
makes her way through a phalanx of soldiers, who warn her to stop while aiming
their rifles directly at her face. Such is the power of someone willing to die for a cause, in this case
democracy for a country that has anointed her its savior. We learn that she is,
in a way, an accidental savior, having been born the daughter of a general who
became a martyr in the fight for democracy, and having arrived from her home in
England to care for her dying mother just as Burma is exploding with revolt and
bloody crackdowns.
Eventually, Suu Kyi and her family—her husband, Michael Aris
(David Thewlis), an Oxford academic, and their two sons—realize that if she
leaves Burma, she will never be allowed to re-enter the country. And so Aris and the boys content
themselves with visits—until the time comes when, in a tactical ploy, they are
denied entry. “You have the freedom to choose: your family or your country,” a
government official tells Suu Kyi. “What kind of freedom is that?” she answers.
I had to wonder if Suu Kyi’s husband was really that
consistently supportive. As a teacher dealing with that part of the world, he
too was passionate about democracy in Burma, but the movie never indicates the
slightest hesitation as monumental decisions are made, despite the months and
then years that pass without the boys seeing their mother. (You can almost hear
hearts breaking when they inevitably lose the connection during their
occasional phone calls, which Suu Kyi makes from the British embassy.)
Suu Kyi spends much of the film under house arrest—the house
being her family’s, the general’s, a grand if decaying mansion on a lake. (You
may recall the news reports a few years ago when an American man swam across
the lake to Suu Kyi’s house, thus jeopardizing her freedom.) With its terraces overlooking the water, it looks beautiful, as do the orchids in Suu Kyi’s hair
and her colorful long skirts and delicate blouses.
A dead ringer for Suu Kyi, the ultra-slim Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) conveys
not only the activist’s bravery and dignity but also the anguish she suffers as her own
sacrifices become her husband’s and sons’ as well. In depicting Suu Kyi’s
remarkable story through the prism of her family life, screenwriter Rebecca
Frayn and director Luc Besson have made their own wise choice.
