So, Luc Besson has directed a political drama. We’re not kidding. The hugely successful producer behind action fare like “The Transporter,” “Taken,” and “District 13” and the director of “The Fifth Element” and “The Professional” has gone ahead and made a movie about Burmese pro-democracy politician and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi titled “The Lady.” Perhaps he’s trying to make some kind of karmic amends for making us endure so much schlock? Either way, we’re fascinated and if this first teaser trailer is anything to go by, Besson is preparing something somewhat majestic in scope.
Starring Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis, the film takes place between 1988 – when Aung San Suu Kyi left Oxford to visit her sick mother and ended up staying in Burma – and 1999, the year her husband, Michael Aris (Thewlis), died after being diagnosed with cancer. Aung San Suu Kyi was faced with an almost impossible decision of whether to stay or go after Aris had been forbidden from entering the country. It’s an interesting approach, one that we imagine will see Kyi battling her personal responsibilities against her political convictions. Certainly, the film looks great with the opening sunset shot and closing sweep of Kyi stepping up on a platform to address a massed throng of people being particularly impressive.
The film will premiere at TIFF next month. Check out the official synopsis and trailer below.
The Lady is the extraordinary story of Aung San Suu Kyi and her husband, Michael Aris. It is also the story of the peaceful quest of the woman who is at the core of Burma‟s democracy movement. Despite distance, long separations, and a dangerously hostile regime, their love endures until the very end. It‟s a story of devotion and human understanding set against a backdrop of political turmoil that continues today. The Lady was written over a period of three years by Rebecca Frayn. Interviews with key figures in Aung San Suu Kyi‟s entourage enabled her to reconstruct for the first time the true story of Burma‟s national heroine. Stars Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis.
