Amor, honor y libertad

The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, is played wonderfully by Michelle Yeoh. I knew little about this famous person as I suspect many also didn't. The movie provides you with historical information you should be happy to learn. This kind of movie is a departure from what we are accustomed to see from director Luc Besson, and it is a pleasant discovery. Yeoh delivers a beautiful performance and so does Davis Thewlis, who plays her husband.

The movie is a truly beautiful love story, one that touches on the human spirit as few movies do. It is inspirational, nothing less. You will be moved by the story. The movie depicts the life of a people under military dictatorship and how the whole nation rallies behind the person that was destined to lead it despite all odds. You are likely to be following Aung San Suu Kyi ongoing real life story from that point on, as she is still very much the people's leader today. I could not recommend this movie more strongly.

Making a commercial film about a struggle for human rights and democracy is a real struggle because most audiences want entertainment and not politics. So the producers have to find an 'angle'. In 1987, "A World Apart" told the story of the fight against apartheid in South Africa but through the prism of the strain that this put on ANC activist Ruth First's relationship with her young daughter. A similar approach is used here in this account of the life of Aung San Suu Kyi, the eponymous lady and leader of the National League for Democracy in the dictatorship that has ruled Burma for most of the period since post-war independence from Britain. So it is not politics as such which is to the fore here but Suu Kyi's relationship with her husband, Oxford academic Michael Aris, and most especially the regime's brutal refusal to allow Aris to see his wife one last time when he was dying of prostate cancer. It is a gut-wrenchingly sad tale.

Malaysian-born actress Michelle Yeoh - a Bond girl in "Tomorrow Never Dies" and pugilist star of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" - looks perfect in the leading role, giving a performance which, while often understated, is deeply moving. David Thewlis (various "Harry Potter" films and "The Boy With The Striped Pyjamas") is very effective as the long-suffering husband. The exotic locations and local faces in Thailand serve the movie well and original music by the French Eric Serra plus some Mozart enhance the emotional power of the work. It is perhaps no surprise that the script for what is in essence a love story comes from a female writer - the British Rebecca Frayn - but one might not expect the identity of the director for this Anglo-French film: Luc Besson, best known for such action movies as "Nikita", "Leon" and "The Fifth Element".

"The Lady" may be a bit one-dimensional and lack nuance, but it highlights a long struggle for human rights that is not sufficiently well-known and the timing of its release (I saw it in January 2012) is poignant. When filming started, Suu Kyi was still under house arrest, as she had been in total for some 15 years, but by the time the film was finished she had been released. At the end of the movie, the iron grip of the regime and the number of political prisoners are highlighted but, in the weeks around the film's release, the generals instituted a series of liberalisation measures including the freeing of most political prisoners. If all this augurs an era of genuine democracy in Burma, "The Lady" will be a wonderful testimony to the power of personal courage and sacrifice to effect political change.

It's an absolute success: Luc Besson has succeeded to bring you to the Burma through a deeply humanistic and political involved history. Then the two principal actors (Michelle Yeoh & David Thewlis) play very well their roles and let you feel their passion in the private life and their struggle for democracy and peace in the social life.

There are some similarities with another masterpiece of Besson "Leon: The Professional": both are in admiration of "courage and love". Aung San Suu Kyi like Leon is an alone hero fighting against tyranny and organized corrupted power. If the effort of Leon to protect the young innocent Mathilda made you feel sympathy for this individual, undoubtedly you will admire this brave woman her comfort herself and her family to defend the whole nation from the dictatorship of the military regime.

My wife and I really enjoyed the movie. The Parisian cinema was almost full and at the end gave the impression that the spectators were satisfied .One row ahead of us there was a senior couple, the old man asked: "darling did you like it for the second time?" The lady answered: "sure, could we come again to watch it for a third time?!"

P.S: It's a shame that she as the Myanmar leader has not provided the relevant response to the Rohingya humanitarian crisis. It is depressing to see how an earlier hero of peace, could become silence and indifferent in the treatment of its Rohingya minority, who according to the UN have suffered ethnic cleansing and violent attacks by Myanmar's military forces. The reel life is sadly more cruel than the movie!

This is one of the best films I have seen in a long time. It was highly entertaining, emotionally evoking and educational. I had known very little on the situation in Bhurma, and felt the summaries I read prior to visiting the cinema to see this film did not do justice to this cinematic gem. I came away from the screening determined to learn more and do what small part I could to right the wrongs portrayed in The Lady. The setting was wonderful, and I felt the cast played their parts marvellously. Many write ups of the film have criticised the length, however I do not think the story could have developed to give one a reasonable overview of the situation with a shorter script. It would be unnecessary to follow each of the characters' developments in the film, particularly given the length of time in question.

I would recommend this film to anyone as essential viewing, whether or not you have an interest in political affairs or not. The politics in The Lady is so simply set out and self- explanatory that anyone would understand the issues at hand.

I have to say I didn't find any wrong notes in this film at all. Performances were excellent and the way the writer pulled out the key events was deft. Crucially, the writer doesn't spoon feed you with every emotion, every key thought or motivation. The audience has to think and imagine. How would it feel to lose your father at a young age? How would it feel to build a life away from your own country and then return there to find it in turmoil? How would you respond to being asked to lead a protest to save your country, knowing the personal sacrifice that will involve? Superb drama about a real and tragic story that continues to play out.