Flight school for the spirit of Myanmar: Aerial nationalism and Burmese-Japanese cinematic collaboration in the 1930s

Abstract

In 1935, two Burmese filmmakers traveled to Tokyo with the intention of acquiring the latest sound recording equipment and training in sound-on-film production. In addition to these stated goals, in Japan they co-produced the feature film Japan Yin Thwe/Nippon Musume, ‘Japanese Darling.’ The film depicts daring young Burmese aviators and a budding romance with a Japanese woman. The active harnessing of the symbolic capital of aviation – the ideological notion of airmindedness – through the mimetic capacities of cinema, could be seen as a prescient example of Pan-Asianism, predating Daitoa Kyoeiken ‘Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ propaganda. The film’s explicit encouragement of Burmese techno-nationalism offers a compelling contrast to other examples of anti-colonial nationalism, which emphasize notions of ethnic history and Buddhist morality and concerns of religious decline in the face of foreign imperialism. However, a comprehensive analysis of the film industry and commercial aviation in Japan in the 1930s reveals a structural impetus for this collaboration, arguably overshadowing ideological motivations and results.