by John Bao
This review is published as part of the Youth Critics Initiative V, a collaborative mentorship incubator between the 27th Reel Asian Film Festival and TACLA.
I used to be an optimist. Hope brings colour to life. Anticipation brings about an excitement that can’t be quelled in your soul. Doesn’t it feel good to see things play out exactly how you wanted it to? It brings about a sense of control and certainty for your future, that everything will be just fine.
I don’t know what happened since, but, I’m a pessimist now. There are more times than I can count when I’ve been let down, that reality did not match my desires. Perhaps my dreams were too lofty, but that’s not the point. I believed I was more on the side of realism, but my editor laughed in my face. My jaw dropped at that realization about myself. How blind could I be to not have known that? But I don’t view life bleakly. It’s peculiar—I use pessimism to generate excitement in my life.
If my expectations are low, then the threshold for an event to surprise me is bound to be surpassed, allowing joy to enter my life with ease. Or, I abandon expectations altogether, and the lack of attachment will bring bliss. A life without worries. It’s worked for me and I find myself happier these days. I’m more content with life as is, instead of looking forward to the next big thing. Although I welcome ambition, I’ll still try to achieve goals for myself. Rather than fantasizing about them, I do the work.
I give this advice to my friends: minimize your sadness and maximize your happiness.
This is what I thought the short film, EVENING CLOUDS was preaching, and I was all about it. “Yes! Spread the message and share it with everyone you know!” That’s also why I love narrative short films: they provide a relatable glimpse into another person’s life and represent a message the director wants to share with the world. For me, the film strengthened my beliefs, but also reminded me of something I’ve forgotten, but only after having carefully dissected this film did I find it so profound. More on this later.
EVENING CLOUDS by Aung Phyoe is about a young Burmese girl who yearns for liberation from the expectations imposed on her. After losing her job at the factory, San Kyi must care for her bedridden grandmother while her widowed mother struggles to support the family. To alleviate their struggles, San’s mother arranges for her to marry Ko Bhone, an older family friend. These obligations weigh heavily on San, but she sees a way out with her friend and romantic interest Theint Theint Oo, who, like her, has lost her factory job and now plans to return to her hometown. San plans to elope with her, but events do not exactly play out the way she expects.
What exactly are expectations? Simply put, they are strong beliefs about an outcome in the future. These expectations arise from a desire for control, predictability, and stability. It’s a common occurrence in Canadian immigrant families. Immigrants experience instability when relocating to Canada for many reasons: a lack of resources from being unable to bring many belongings from their home country, restarting careers and financial records, and having to discover a new network of support. When adapting to a new societal structure, there is inevitably chaos. To have their children avoid these hardships, they pressure them to pursue a predictable path toward a secure future. In many cases, it does work out and success stories are heard through the dragon fruit vine. “Did you hear your cousin became a doctor? He already has a house and got married. You should follow in his footsteps.” Words that are all too familiar to first-generation children. Similarly, the values formed amongst the characters in this film are exacerbated by the disarray of the political turmoil in Yangon, Myanmar, where prices for mohinga, a breakfast staple, fluctuate constantly and where bomb explosions are a daily occurrence. Within the chaos, they yearn for something predictable and stable to latch onto.
San is ensnared in a web of expectations that control her. She is burdened by familial and gender norms, primarily from her mother. There are also the expectations she creates for herself, displaced onto a saviour figure who might rescue her from her predicament. All these conflicting desires inflict San so much that they manifest in her dreams, a sign that her subconscious motivations have been infected. To make matters worse, these demands also arise against a politically unstable backdrop. This social instability increases the pressure of the burdens she feels, creating a sense of urgency to resolve things and establish stability in her life.
To escape this web, she places her bets on Theint, someone who can answer all of San’s problems, and who she believes can fulfill her desires. Most of the dialogue spoken by San is about Theint or when she’s with Theint. San feels her most authentic self around her. Love is framed as a liberating force and the queer nature of San’s and Theint’s relationship is radically liberating in itself since it challenges many social norms in Myanmar. A lot rides on Theint, who holds power over San and controls the outcome of San’s happiness.
On the other hand, with her mother and Bhone, it’s largely an exchange of small talk for San. She only speaks one sentence to Bhone, “Do you want more water?” out of common courtesy. San is restrained in these relationships. They address San purely as the roles she plays for the family: a caregiver, a wife, and a potential mother. San’s relationship with Theint looks much more special in comparison since only Theint can bring out all of San.
EVENING CLOUDS begins with San asleep, passing the time as if waiting for something. Then, her phone on the table rings and San gets up to look out the window. Every time she looks out the window, there’s only one thing and one person she looks for: Theint. San reminds me of an earlier version of myself. Dreaming about the possibilities, unable to do anything else to pass the time but fantasize. Theint is all that occupies her mind.
Are we defined by our desires? In San’s case, yes. Theint is the sole motivator of her life. Are we in control of our dreams and desires or do they control us? The dream-self relationship is cyclical. Our dreams can only arise from subconscious desires, but the dream synthesizes a possibility that fuels these desires. Yet, the cyclical nature of our wishes can be harmful.
When Theint arrives, she asks if San’s mother is home, to which San replies, “No.” These two have a private relationship that they don’t want others peering into. It is so private that Theint tightly packs her cell phone into her purse after entering the house, closing them off from the rest of the world. The nature of their relationship is taboo in Burmese society as the Myanmar government does not recognize same-sex marriages. To remain safe and protect their relationship, no other eyes can pry into their relationship, and many precautions must be taken. The burden of gender norms lies heavily on the two as they challenge them, straining their relationship.
Over breakfast, the two talk about their cloudy future. It’s revealed that things aren’t going so well: they were laid off from their factory jobs in the city, mohinga prices keep going up, Theint’s elbow is swollen from preparing to move back to her hometown, and San is unwillingly getting married off to a much older family friend. Despite these misfortunes, what keeps them going is their relationship. They discuss eloping back to Theint’s hometown, although San is unconfident if she can. But what she can do is show her love to Theint. Without uttering a word, she gives her an egg from her mohinga. She stealthily takes her grandmother’s gold bracelet and gives it to Theint to sell for a pair of bus tickets to Theint’s hometown. San is invested in her relationship with Theint and is willing to give her anything without asking, hoping for a future together despite the odds stacked against them. This is a dream that San is heavily investing in to become true, a dream that could easily dissipate before her eyes if just one thing goes wrong, a dream not entirely based on reality. This one hope becomes her life aspiration. If all goes well, then it’s happily ever after for San and she doesn’t have to worry about anything else, or so she thinks. But, what are the odds of that? What would happen if it’s taken away?
As Theint does her makeup in front of the mirror, she sings a little song:
The clouds are turning grey.
It seems it’s going to rain.
So the waves will be getting wilder.
Sweetheart, please come closer to me,
you will get wet in the rain…
The song illustrates their relationship, the gloomy weather an ominous symbol of their future, and their desire to be closer during this turbulent time. However, the way the shot is framed suggests other possibilities. The two are deftly positioned in a mirror, but their gazes do not meet. San stares longingly at Theint but Theint is fixed on her makeup. The lack of reciprocation in their gazes illustrates how their visions for the future do not align. San expects a future with Theint but given her signals, seeming hesitant about moving away, Theint still plans to move away knowing that San most likely can’t commit. The rain won’t last forever and eventually, the two will have to go their separate ways.
Theint notices San’s more dishevelled appearance from staying home all day and they switch spots. She puts her hair clip into San’s hair, an act of intimacy. The two discuss their possible future further: Theint has been asking her friends around for jobs for them, but also tells San she doesn’t have to worry too much about what lies ahead, and that her mother and Bhone can always provide for her. San refutes all that, saying she could never marry him and that they’ll stay together, hugging Theint tightly. Getting even more intimate, they start to tickle each other. San’s desire is at its climax. The thing is, Theint is a little older than San. She has a few more years of experience and has already adopted a more realistic mindset after having lived her life so far. San has the eager and earnest energy to ramble about lofty dreams all day while Theint knows the reality of the situation, proposing pragmatic solutions for their issues if they’re truly going to move away. San trusts that it will all work out smoothly as long as she’s with Theint. Hoping won’t get anyone anywhere, but the action driven by the hope will, however small it may be, and Theint knows this.
It seems as if things might escalate between the two, but a bomb blast kills the mood, a daily occurrence in Yangon. Theint’s phone rings in her purse, raising San’s suspicion. Theint tries to silence the phone. Who could be calling her and why did she tuck her phone away so tightly earlier? Theint leaves to secure bus tickets, but San’s suspicion is piqued—she monitors Theint from the window and finds that Theint is cautious of her surroundings, making sure no one else sees what she’s doing. Theint heads toward a nearby alleyway, and San’s gaze follows her, catching Theint secretly meeting a mystery man. The notion of Theint seeing another person, a man, for that matter, intrudes on San’s thoughts. It chips away at the dream she longs for. When the dream you’ve been banking on so heavily is taken away, what else is left in your heart?
Before San can muse any further, San’s mother arrives home, and San is asked to help Bhone bring up her grandmother’s oxygen tank. San’s interactions with her mother and Bhone are restrained, creating a tense atmosphere. Her mother orders San around to assist with chores and no other kind of communication is exchanged between them, not even a “how was your day?” Furthermore, San’s mother talks about San as someone who provides care and “great-grandchildren” to her grandmother if she lives long enough. The gender norms that burden San are on full display here. She is required to be a provider in all contexts, without a say in it herself. Her mother orders San to go to the hospital with her grandmother as her condition is worsening. She complacently agrees. While still trying to resolve her fantasy escape being ripped from her, she must deal with familial obligations before tending to her own needs. Expectations burden her twofold here— her unfulfilled hope of being with Theint, and the enforced responsibility to assist the household at a moment’s notice. Her relationship with her home is prison-like, alluded to by the bars attached to her window.
With Ko Bhone, their conversations are even more restrained. Simple nods, glances, and other non-verbal cues are exchanged to coordinate on the same task. The disinterest is clear from an outsider’s view, but maybe not for Bhone who perceives it as kindness. His presumptions of San frame how he interprets her actions. There’s a well-crafted shot where the two are positioned in a mirror, but the two are not looking at each other. Bhone tries to make eye contact when trying to make conversation but San keeps her gaze away from him, a reflection of how their views of each other do not align, an echo of the earlier mirror shot with Theint. The unspoken presumption that the two will be wed creates a tense atmosphere here as well.
The situation would be more relaxed without that assumption, wouldn’t it?
San goes to fix her hair by the mirror and begins to sing the song that Theint was singing earlier–Theint still lingers in her mind. The song takes on a different meaning now. Forced to go to the hospital with her grandmother, all San wants is to be with Theint. If all else, if she cannot escape the expectations of her family, she wants Theint to be by her side.
She removes the hairpin that Theint put on earlier and starts to fidget with it, fixating on what Theint could be doing with the man she met. Her mind spirals into unwanted thoughts of Theint being intimate with someone else. San grips the hair clip tighter and tighter at the thought of Theint’s “disloyalty” and it eventually pierces her hand, drawing blood. This thought harms San both mentally and physically as her hope for Theint transforms from a bright future to mental anguish. Theint becomes all she can think about. The scene then cuts to San waking up, it was a dream after all. After she wakes up, San tries calling Theint, but to no avail. She scans out her window for any signs of Theint, but nothing. Her suspicions of Theint betraying her are affirmed. The dream has devolved into a nightmare and the symptoms of its burden become ever clearer.
If only she hadn’t mentally invested so much energy into trying to manifest it, she wouldn’t be suffering.
As revenge for betraying her, San tells her mother that Theint stole the precious gold bracelet that belonged to the family. San was fidgeting with the hair clip earlier, chanting to herself, “Theint took it, Theint took it, Theint took it”, to convince herself that Theint was the wrongdoer responsible, to desperately morph her image of Theint to ease the sting of deception. Dismantling the expectation of Theint that she had built up so much takes just as much effort and investment, hence the extremity of her actions.
San’s mother had saved the gold bracelet to help them out in potential financial ruts, but with that safety net gone now, her mother threatens to punish San by reporting her to the police for allowing Theint to do that. She knows that San fawns over her, but is not aware of the full extent of their relationship. However, Bhone intervenes and says that the situation outside after the bombing is too dangerous and that the police have other priorities on hand. She gives up on dealing with it. San went so far as to potentially expose the nature of her relationship with Theint to her mother and the police likely would have found out. San had truly lost all hope in their relationship that she was willing to abandon it all and just move on. San’s dream had harmed her more than it had brought her joy in the end.
Why have dreams in the first place?
The ambulance for San’s grandmother finally arrives and they bring their belongings downstairs. Expecting the worst, her mother takes off her grandmother’s ring, raising many questions. Will she make it back home? Is she in serious need of money to think of selling the ring? Will this fast-track Bhone and San’s marriage? The family is at its most unstable now, lacking the financial safety net with the gold bracelet and the grandmother needing care at the hospital. States of transition bring about disruption. Familial obligations are felt now more than ever to ensure things don’t spiral further.
At this moment, I think it is better to take control of the situation and work towards a desired outcome than to worry and fret over anything that can go wrong. Mental resources need to be so preciously allocated towards productive outcomes.
As San is packing her things in the ambulance, Theint waves her over to the alley nearby to talk. San goes to hear Theint out but it’s not up for discussion. Theint’s reputation with San’s family had already been tarnished. However, Theint had followed the plan exactly as laid out and has the money now. Theint mentions the hardships she had to go through for Theint. “I can get killed in a bomb blast, or I can get randomly detained by the police. You never try to put yourself in my shoes.” Theint came back for San in the end and isn’t the end goal what matters? She sheds a tear, hurt by the sudden change of heart she sees in San. Theint still acted for San, but not in the way San fantasized.
Theint doesn’t elaborate on who the man she met was. Perhaps he’s the reason that Theint was able to get any money at all and Theint had to make a difficult decision to save their relationship, to attain the future they want. Despite all of that, San rejects her, she knows there’s no going back after telling her family. Theint, in one last act of desperation, gives San all of the money she got from the bracelet, enough for two bus tickets out of the city and walks away. She doesn’t go with San as the purity of their relationship has been tarnished and the trust is lost. She decides to empower San and sacrifices her future for San’s happiness. San in the end though, betrays all expectations of both her dream of eloping with Theint and of the disappointment from Theint’s “betrayal”. All San needs to do now is decide for herself what’s next. The one in control of San’s happiness has now shifted from Theint to San. This conflict could have been avoided if San didn’t have such strict presumptions of Theint. San had created a false image, a delusion not representative of reality.
San returns to the ambulance and reflects on her conversation with Theint. While stuck in traffic on the dusty, debris-filled roads and grasping her grandmother’s hand, San notices a change—a lack of pulse. It takes some time for San to realize what this means for her. She had lost a family member, but may finally feel liberated, as if her grandmother heard her woes and permitted her to be free. Free from the burden of having to take care of her, free from having to provide great-grandchildren. Paradoxically, this moment of loss comes with a moment of freedom with bittersweetness for San. She had never wished for her grandmother to die, but perhaps that was the only way for San to be free. San decides right then and there: she busts out of the ambulance doors and escapes in the middle of traffic.
The final scene shows San walking across a bridge, leading out of the city, against a sunset. With her backpack in hand, she pulls out her phone, which she typically checks for one reason. The dream is rekindled and San needs to call Theint.
It took me a while to figure out the meaning of this ending. At first, I thought it was an open ending and I wasn’t at all sure where she was going. Was she going to leave all on her own? It wasn’t clear to me if her grandmother had died, so did she just abandon her out of selfishness? Because her decisions were in line with my own beliefs that all expectations should be abandoned, I was prevented from seeing the film comprehensibly. She reminded me of a past naive version of myself that had just learned the pain of disappointment and I became fixated on the idea that the film was inherently pessimistic. Only after multiple rewatches of the short film did I realize how much more complex her situation was. Sure, San did bring about her own misery from constructing delusions of the future, but so many other things just happened to fall into place for her afterwards that she could not but have hope.
Am I still a pessimist? Yes. After all, I told you to abandon your hopes and dreams to avoid suffering. EVENING CLOUDS depicts the weight of the burdens that San carries with her over and over, in various shapes and forms. But the film also represents reality: life will never play out exactly how we wish it to be, in both positive and negative directions. Even though this is fictionalized, the film connected with me in many ways that it felt real, that I and everyone go through an experience similar to this, a universal and necessary lesson. As I mentioned earlier, if my expectations are low, then the threshold to be happy is bound to be surpassed. This part of my philosophy was something I needed to be reminded of and only after the film was hammered into me did I put the pieces together. There is room to dream a little bit as long as action is taken towards it. Our dreams hurt us only if they are never realized.
John Bao is an emerging screenwriter, drawn to character-driven storytelling, no matter the genre, ranging from the surreal to borderline autobiographical. He is a recent participant of the Justice For My Sister BIPOC Sci-Fi Screenwriting Lab, currently developing an all-ages TV animated pilot. He is also a member of Writers In Trees, a collective of emerging writers, specializing in short prose and poetry. You can catch him watching films, struggling in music, or exploring the city in his never-ending search for inspiration.
IG: john.bao
