Genre Drama

The Beginning (2022)

Item: The Beginning
Rating: 2.5
Author: Ross McLaren

★★½ — The Beginning (2022)

Right, I'll be upfront with you: this one's hard to pin down, and I'm still not sure I've fully got a grip on it even after watching it twice. That's not always a bad thing, but with The Beginning, a 2022 film from Myanmar, the confusion didn't feel particularly rewarding. It felt more like I was missing a briefing that everyone else had already received.

Let me start with what happens, as best as I can describe it. The film opens with what is clearly a suicide by hanging. It's off-screen, but it's unmistakable, and I want to flag that for anyone who might find that difficult to sit with. After that, we're dropped into what I can only describe as a roundtable conversation: a group of people sitting around a table, talking about the political and social situation in Myanmar. And that's more or less it. So yes, a content warning and a bit of context-setting are both genuinely warranted before you press play on this one.

I watched it through the first time and genuinely wasn't sure what the opening scene had to do with what followed. So I went back and watched it again, and I'm still not entirely certain I understand the connection. Whether the hanging is meant to be symbolic of the broader suffering of the country, or whether it's tied to a specific person or event referenced later in the discussion, I couldn't tell you with confidence. That ambiguity might be intentional. But it left me at arm's length from the whole thing.

What I will say is this: do your research before watching. The film assumes a working knowledge of the political situation in Myanmar, both historically and in the more recent period of military rule and civil unrest. Go in cold, and you'll likely feel as lost as I did at points. Go in with some background reading under your belt, and I suspect the conversations around that table land with considerably more weight. It's a film that demands you meet it halfway, possibly more than halfway.

And those conversations, for what it's worth, are where the film holds most of its power. There's something about the way these people speak that made me genuinely question whether I was watching scripted drama or documentary. It has the texture of real testimony. The hesitations, the emotional undercurrents, the sense that these aren't lines being delivered but experiences being shared. Whether that's extraordinary naturalistic performance or whether these are real people speaking about real things, I honestly couldn't say. But it gave me pause, and I mean that as a genuine compliment to whatever the filmmakers were doing. It reminded me a little of the way Land Without Bread (1933) blurs that line between document and art, leaving you unsettled about what exactly you're watching and what the ethical weight of watching it might be.

The problem is that the overall shape of the film resists easy engagement. It's not a comfortable watch, it's not especially accessible, and it doesn't offer you much in the way of narrative satisfaction. I respect that. Some films aren't designed to comfort you. But I think there's a difference between being challenging and being opaque, and The Beginning sometimes tips into the latter.

I came away feeling like this is a film that probably means a great deal more to a Myanmar audience, or to anyone with a close connection to the events it's referencing, than it does to an outsider like me. That's not a criticism of the film exactly. It's just an honest acknowledgement of my own limitations as a viewer here. Being part of my A-Z World Movie Tour, this was my entry point into Myanmar cinema, and I'm genuinely curious to explore more, because there's clearly something serious and committed going on in what I watched.

Two and a half stars. Right down the middle, because that's genuinely where I land. Not a film I'd push on someone without significant caveats, but not without value either.

Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2025-07-26

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