The Road to Mandalay

Ille­gal Burmese immi­grant Lian­qing (Wu Kei Xi) has crossed the bor­der into Bangkok in search of free­dom and oppor­tu­ni­ty. Instead, she is met with unem­ploy­a­bil­i­ty, des­per­a­tion and lone­li­ness, her fate seem­ing­ly future­less. Direct­ed by Midi Z, whose oeu­vre expands from fea­tures (Poi­son Ivy) to doc­u­men­taries (City of Jade), The Road to Man­dalay is an hon­est depic­tion of the weary­ing strug­gles of immi­gra­tion, laced with sur­re­al­ist thought.

Char­ac­ters are trapped in repet­i­tive rou­tines, eat­ing noo­dles, labour­ing in fac­to­ries and kitchens, before return­ing to cramped liv­ing con­di­tions and shared beds. Match­ing this sta­sis is Tom Fan’s cam­era that rarely leaves the mas­ter shot, lim­it­ing move­ment with­in a sin­gu­lar frame, and plac­ing the view­er as a motion­less bystander. Authen­tic dia­logue height­ens this nat­u­ral­ism, and reads as though tak­en straight from the home of Burmese immigrants.

In con­trast to the still­ness, dis­colour­ing rooms and pale green land­scapes, is the whip speed of the city and its vibrant flash­es of yel­low lights and twin­kling sky­scrap­ers. The dis­par­i­ty works to under­line a glar­ing class divide and how far reach­ing our protagonist’s dreams for bet­ter­ment are. Flir­ta­tions with pros­ti­tu­tion appear to be her only way for­ward and it’s at these moments of utmost psy­cho­log­i­cal dread that the film’s most sur­re­al scenes come out to play.

On the back­drop we have a slow-burn­ing romance between Lian­qing and Guo (Ko Chen-tung), a man whom she meets cross­ing the bor­der. Endear­ing and hum­ble, Ko Cheng-tung’s per­for­mance has us root­ing for Guo as he seeks to do what he can to help. Their inti­ma­cy goes no fur­ther than a brush of hands, and words are often left unspo­ken, leav­ing their depen­den­cy on one anoth­er in a state of unnerv­ing ambi­gu­i­ty, unknow­ing­ly on the edge of danger.