The Lady Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

The Lady Blu-ray Movie Review

The Bamboo Lady.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 29, 2012

The annual pilgrimage of world leaders to the United Nations often provokes everything from laughter to horror. In the funny category, The Daily Show just did an hilarious routine on Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu using a “prop” of a bomb during his speech to the General Assembly, while in the horrific category the world held its breath yet again to see what inanities Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would attempt to foist on an incredulous public. President Obama gave a typically serious speech spanning all sorts of global issues. One interesting passing comment had to do with human rights in Burma, something that probably didn’t register all that strongly with a lot of the public. Burma is one of those exotic lands whose tempestuous history isn’t especially well known by most Westerners, despite the fact that it was a British colony for decades before its independence was achieved in 1948. It’s kind of interesting that another former British colony which achieved sovereignity at around the same time, India, has a much better known story, especially with regard to Mohatma Gandhi who helped to achieve that freedom, than does Burma, even though Burma’s more recent political history is just as rife with amazing people doing heroic things to help shape their country’s future for the better. One of those people is Aung San Suu Kyi, a native Burmese who spent her college career at Oxford and who over the next several years lived both in New York and London, working for the very United Nations where Obama mentioned her country this year. Though her name may not ring huge bells with many Westerners, she’s one of the most lauded contemporary political figures on the world stage, having won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 as well as several other international awards given to her on behalf of her work to restore democracy to her native country. The fact that she did much of this while being kept under house arrest is perhaps only a small measure of just how forceful a personality she is.

When Gandhi (a similar film to The Lady in several key elements) was released in 1982, it was rightly lauded for its impeccable lead performance and overall story arc even while many complained about the stodgy direction of Richard Attenborough. The same could well be said of The Lady, although this film’s director, Luc Besson, seems a much odder choice than Attenborough, who at least had worked as an actor in several big budget epics through the years, and would, one presume, at least know the basics of how to go about staging one himself. Besson, on the other hand, has had a hugely disparate output which nonetheless has quite often focused on science fiction (Le Dernier Combat, The Fifth Element). Perhaps the best previous film in Besson’s oeuvre in terms of proving his mastery of biography is The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, but that outing, while undeniably stylish, was only fitfully effective from a dramatic standpoint.

Besson’s penchant for showy camera moves and whiz bang effects (and action) sequences is largely kept restrained in The Lady, obviously in an attempt to give the subject matter the gravitas it so obviously (perhaps too obviously) wants to attain. Still Besson can’t resist the occasional “wow” moment, as in the film’s devastating early sequence (after a brief storytelling prelude and a framing device which introduces Suu Kyi’s husband Michael Aris, played by David Thewlis) where Suu Kyi’s father, a Burmese army officer who helped the country achieve independence, is assassinated in 1947 when Suu Kyi was still a little girl. Besson stages the moment with undeniable flair, although it’s such a viscerally “flashy” moment that it might have been more at home in some of Besson’s more hyperbolic efforts rather than this relatively staid outing.

Once we get into the main story arc, which sees the adult Suu Kyi (Michelle Yeoh) returning to Burma to care for her ailing mother, things settle down into a more standard biographical rut. Suu Kyi’s family is still lionized by the Burmese people for having helped achieve independence, although the intervening years have been marred by the quasi-fascistic efforts of the Burmese military, which cracks down on any dissent and does not suffer democratic “fools” gladly. Suu Kyi is approached to help her native country overcome these obstacles and to hopefully restore a “true” democracy, which is where the central conflict of The Lady appears. Suu Kyi is incredibly effective in connecting with the people, which of course in turn disturbs the powers that be, resulting in a serious struggle that eventually sees Suu Kyi apparently winning an election but almost simultaneously being put under house arrest.

Part of what gives The Lady a lot of its stately power is the fact that this isn’t just the story of political unrest and the fight for justice, but it’s also an extremely touching love story between Suu Kyi and Aris. The entire film is in fact framed by the devastating news that Aris is dying of terminal cancer, and the knowledge of his imminent demise colors everything that is shown both as flashback and in “current” time. This may also be what tends to undercut the film at times from that very political content. The Lady wants to detail the sacrifices Suu Kyi is forced to make, especially with regard to her family, and while those are inarguably noble, they also tend to distance the viewer from the character, making her somehow more of a symbol than an actual human being.

2011 saw another political biography with Lady in its title about another formidable twentieth century female leader of note, The Iron Lady , about Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. Both used framing devices and both in fact dealt at least tangentially with health issues. But while the Thatcher biopic used the very steely nature of its focal subject in the very adjective adorning the film’s title, The Lady makes no such descriptive attempt, perhaps due to the bifurcated nature of the film itself, one which veers uneasily between tragic romance and tragic politics. A suitable metaphor, though, might perhaps be bamboo, a native Burmese plant which bends easily during furious storms but which never breaks.

The Lady Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Lady is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group and Entertainment One with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Besson and his frequent collaborator cinematographer Thierry Arbogast capture some glorious location shots (with Thailand filling in for Burma), and despite the film's rather serious (and at times quite violent) ambience, a lot of The Lady features sun glinted views of temples and waving fronds, all of which pop very well in this high definition presentation. Besson tends to favor a lot of extreme close-ups throughout the film, and that in turn boosts fine object detail to superior levels. The DI hasn't been overly toyed with, although some of the film appears to have been graded toward either the golden hued side of the spectrum or, alternatively, a slightly cold blue palette. Contrast is generally quite good, though I personally would have preferred a slightly stronger presence in the British interior scenes especially, but the entire film boasts excellent clarity and precision.

The Lady Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Lady's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is quite subtle at times, but it's impeccably immersive. The film has a number of wonderfully nuanced scenes where ambient environmental noises spill through the surrounds, and there are also several segments of martial violence where things get decidedly more boisterous, with several bursts of LFE. Fidelity is excellent throughout this track, and dialogue is very cleanly presented. Fine attention has been paid to ambient reverb as well—listen to the differences in the sound of dialogue between, for example, the palatial enclave where the military plots it machinations and the hospice where Aris spends his final days. Like the film itself, this track is a little schizophrenic at times, moving from lusciously relaxing sounds to outbursts of violence and gunfire, but the lossless audio handles it all with aplomb.

The Lady Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 2:25)


• Making of The Lady (HD; 27:16) is filled with some interesting interviews with Besson and Yeoh, who talk about how the project got off the ground. There's also copious footage of various scenes being shot.

The Lady Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Michelle Yeoh was being pretty heavily touted in trade magazine advertisements last year for a potential Oscar nomination for The Lady, (That other Lady, Meryl Streep, nabbed a nom and the eventual win.) Yeoh's performance is quite striking and anchors the film in a sense of grace and nobility that really helps the viewer to understand what the stakes are for Burma. The love story angle is perhaps a bit too melodramatic for its own good, and some are going to wonder about Suu Kyi's judgment in a key scene toward the end of the film. But the major problem here may simply have been the film's attempt to divvy up screen time between the marriage and the politics, with neither arc really explored as fully as they might have been. Still, this is an often fascinating film that sheds some light on a sadly little known corner of the world, and Yeoh and Thewlis are both excellent in the leads. It's a flawed film, but like its subject, it has a certain nobility of purpose that helps it to rise above those flaws. This Blu-ray presentation is pretty light on supplements, but boasts superior video and audio. Recommended.