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Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review: Dancing with Dictators (M) ? ? ?

EARLY on July 2011, a court in Myanmar convicted Australian mini-media-baron Ross Dunkley of assault, sentenced him to a month’s imprisonment and turned him free because he had already spent seven weeks in the “notorious Insein prison” (that’s how most media mentions describe it; until I saw Hugh Piper’s film, I’d not heard of it although I wasn’t surprised to see it so described when I did) and appeared in court more than 20 times.

Dunkley owns a small string of English-language newspapers in South East Asia. The one that got him in to trouble was “The Myanmar Times”.

Piper’s film is a portrait of him melded with coverage of his stoush with the regime. He’d been arrested and charged with immigration violations and assault on a sex worker. But what Myanmar’s military dictators really wanted to bang him up for was publishing censorable articles about the regime.

Dunkley projects a typical Aussie larrikin with brains. He has won awards for journalism. He’s passionate about freedom of speech. The film gives strong indications that his staff would follow him to through the gates of hell for a good story.

It’s plump with detail, almost impossible to absorb in a single viewing. Not surprisingly, he’s all for democracy in Myanmar, for replacing the junta with an elected government led by Aung Sun Soo Kyi. Is he a likeable bloke?  With only the film to go by, that’s an each-way bet.

Piper has built the film from the facts of the matter. He and his crew were deported from Myanmar four days after the recent election, when the authorities saw that they were concentrating on Dunkley. Recent diplomatic events make me hopeful, but not optimistic, that the political situation in Myanmar will improve. The film, completed before Hilary Clinton’s visit, projects a similar feel.

At Greater Union, Manuka, 6.30pm, December 8-10 and matinee December 11 at 1.40pm.  Q&A with Hugh Piper on December 8.

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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