By Victoria Looseleaf
They just don’t make ‘em like Aung San Suu Kyi anymore. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, the woman with the nearly unpronounceable name was the young daughter of a Burmese general who was murdered in 1947, an act that eventually led to the military takeover of that country. Suu Kyi left Burma (known as Myanmar since 1989) to attend Oxford, where she met and married Michael Aris. The couple had two sons, lively academic careers and a wonderful life, when, in 1988, Suu Kyi returned to Burma. Once there she led her National League of Democracy to victory in a 1990 election, only to be placed under house arrest for – gasp – nearly two decades by the country’s brutal military regime.
Directed by Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Professional), The Lady is an epic love story – between a man and woman and between a woman and her country. Written by Rebecca Frayn and sumptuously shot (in Thailand) by Thierry Arbogast, it stars a brilliant Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), in the title role, one for which the Malaysian actor had to learn Burmese. The Lady is also anchored by co-star David Thewlis as Aris, a scholar and Asian specialist. (Eminently watchable, Thewlis has been in dozens of films, although we’ve never seen a single Harry Potter flick, but did love him in 1993’s Naked. And he certainly held his own with Brad Pitt in 1997’s Seven Years in Tibet, not to mention cutting up in The Big Lebowski.) In The Lady, Thewlis, doing double duty as Aris’ twin brother, displays an astonishing emotional range that balances the calm of Suu Kyi.
While his wife was held captive in her homeland, Aris was lovingly raising the couple’s sons back in England (cue violins – seriously, composer Eric Serra’s sweeping score hits all the right notes), at the same time he was working to raise worldwide awareness of his wife’s unrelenting fight for democracy. Indeed, Suu Kyi was only released from house arrest last year; Aris, meanwhile, died from prostate cancer in 1999, not having seen his wife for several years before his death, as Myanmar authorities wouldn’t grant him a visa. As for the dissident, Suu Kyi, she was left in the untenable position of having to choose between her family…or her country.
P.S. Timing is everything and this week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton forayed to Myanmar, the first by any secretary of state since 1955. Her visit included several meetings with the most lauded dissident since Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi. We love the photos of this historic occasion. In November, 2012, re-elected President Obama, also visits Myanmar (at top). Peace!
“Welcome to my world, so now let’s eat!”
