#zayar

Chriz Naing’s short film reached for the moon, and suffocated beneath the stars

Zayar, directed by Chriz Naing, was a part of the Savannah Film Festival’s ‘Global Shorts: Refugee Reality’ collection. Shown on October 27th, 2016, it addresses the idea of Burmese refugees escaping Myanmar’s upheaval, escaping horrors such as sex slavery and forced child labor. It is told through the eyes of a Burmese teenager named Zayar, who struggles to come to terms with his escape, and his new life in the American school system.

Zayar’s concept was strong: The idea that good and evil are part of the same coin, and Zayar has to choose whether he’ll take the good of the country, represented by his mother, or the evil, represented by the soldier who- spoilers- kills her.

It’s delivery, however, left much to be desired.

Zayar was a disaster in terms of storytelling. Their lofty aim of the abstract concept fell flat and fell hard. The story opens with Zayar, played by Yo Kwee, and his little sister, played by Yamin I, being urged to run by their injured mother. The woman hands Zayar her beads, and the two obey. Zayar looks back, unfortunately, to see the moment the soldier brings down the gun upon his mother’s head. The story flashes forward to Zayar in America, where he lives with his uncle in a Buddhist monastery. His uncle is the device that delivers the message: good and evil are from the same place. Zayar attends a public school with distractingly obvious ‘gossip is bad’ posters, which is where we meet our main antagonists- a pair of bullies with about as much depth as a layer of a wasp nest. The bullies, straight out of a 80’s PSA, call him names like, “yellow” and make jokes about his “squinted eyes”, but Zayar ignores them and goes about his business.

Much of the rest of the film is dedicated to Zayar staring blankly off into the distance, unfortunately devoting time that could be used to develop characters to establish what the audience already knows- Zayar is sad.

This is the story’s main issue- the characters and their development. Though Zayar does get depth as he chooses what he’s going to take from his time in Myanmar, the rest of the cast are more like plot devices with clothes thrown over them. The uncle is the (stereotypical) ‘wise asian man’. The sister is… the little sister? I don’t even remember her name. Yamin. I had to  look it up in IMDB, that’s how little she stood out. All she does is play on her phone, brag about her friends, and is something for the bullies to make lewd comments at. Maybe one of those earlier mentioned scenes could be switched to a scene in which it is revealed Zayar did not tell his little sister her mother was dead, and she’s waiting for her mother to return. Then it would make sense for her to be flippant and somewhat hopeful, but otherwise she comes across more shallow than a puddle.

The actors at least tried to bring life to the cardboard cutouts they had to play, but none could make any of the characters memorable, likeable, or relatable. Yo Kwee did bring emotion into Zayar, but it was not enough to carry him, nor endear him to the audience. Yamin I, who according to IMDB played Yamin, Zayar’s sister, unfortunately made her character seem even less dimensional. She could have been replaced with a lamp, or a photograph, and the story would not have been changed.

The lighting and cinematography are nothing to write home about, though they clearly show the story. No scene is too dark, the lighting effectively captures the mood, but not in a showy way. There are a couple interesting downshots in scenes involving the mother, but again, it’s not particularly remarkable. Just functional.

The main positive in this movie was the sound. The music, delicate tones contrasting with the stalwart bang of the gong, was an phonetically pleasing experience that kept me listening when I no longer found myself watching. The finality of the gong and what it represented was used in an excellent manner. However, it was still not enough to carry the lackluster story. You can’t make an omelet with a hollow egg, and you can’t have a short film without a good story.