Banned in Laos: "The Rocket"

Cinema World Tour, Film #14

Country: Laos/ Australia

Rating: 6/10

Cute laotian film, which turns out to be banned in Laos because of the way it's criticizing how villagers are neglected and literally thrown out of their homes for economical interests. That's honestly the best part of the film. It starts quite strong, manages to show quite well the misfortune of the „little people“, how the laotian government cares more about Australian energy projects than about their own people. It introduces the absolutely hilarious character of „Uncle Purple“ and is quite entertaining. The second half, which gives the film the title, and especially the climax are unfortunately not very well directed, otherwise the film would have been much better. You can see what the director wanted to achieve, but it seems as if the team didn't have enough experience to put their vision into visuals. Especially the editing gets worse and worse. Anyways, you'll be happy to apologize that fact because of the amazing cinematography, which captures North Laos in lush colours and beautiful images.

The film has a lot of things in common with The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind from Malawi, which I've watched a few days ago. When you've watched both of them, you'll actually notice that it's almost the same film, but in different cultural backgrounds. I'd rather recommend The Boy who Harnessed the Wind than The Rocket. But if you absolutely want to watch a film from Laos, then you wouldn't do anything wrong by choosing this one.