No Magic for Socialists

Artist Htoo Lwin Myo excavates the lesser-known and wildly joyful history of Myanmar’s horror and genre film industry in the 1950s that has persisted through political turmoil and archival neglect, told directly by the people who made it.

The Western gaze has lately viewed Myanmar through a connection to political oppression and natural catastrophe, what’s lesser known from that perspective is the country’s cinematic history. In No Magic for Socialists Burmese artist Htoo Lwin Myo looks to one of the most delightful chapters of his nation’s film history. The special effects heavy horror and fantasy spectacles of the 1950s and early 1960s – a genre essentially crushed after the military coup of 1962 and the rise to power of a socialist party that considered these tales of superstition a violation of the new ideological order.

Considering the poor state of the preservation of Myanmar filmic heritage, it’s with great luck that some examples of this persecuted genre still survive, if usually only in fragments and in deteriorated states. Still, each frame Htoo Lwin Myo has unearthed and now shares with the world is cause for joy, while each story told by the filmmakers he assembles from the bygone industry is a source of wonder.

– Olaf Möller

Trailer

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