Today marks four years since Aung San Suu Kyi was released from her third and, hopefully, final spell of house arrest. It took a few months for the Nobel Peace laureate to find her feet in the transitional Myanmar taking shape beyond the walls of her Yangon home. Once she had decided to work with President Thein Sein’s reform agenda, however, it became another very interesting period in a signal life. To celebrate today’s anniversary, I focus on a film completed in the closing months of Daw Suu’s detention, and issued soon thereafter – Anne Gyrithe Bonne’s Aung San Suu Kyi: Lady of No Fear, released in 2010.

There’s really a great deal to like about this movie. Images and footage from every important phase in its subject’s life are terrific. Interviews with key figures are truly insightful. Analysis of both the private and the public lives is tremendous. There are also several very special moments (all timings approximate). At 04:00, in response to a question about the dilemma of leaving her husband and two sons for Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi says she never answers personal questions (not entirely true). At 21:30, she makes the critical point that her motivating mission in life is to finish the work left undone by her father, Aung San, at the time of his July 1947 assassination. At 35:50, she states that it was her decision in late 1990 to stop writing letters to close family members in the UK because she did not wish to communicate through the authorities (who routinely inspected her correspondence). At 43:10, she cites the four key ingredients of success as taught by Buddhism: will, right attitude, perseverance and wisdom. At 55:00, Kim Aris gives a wonderful oration at his father’s funeral. At 57:45, Michael Aris lists the four (rather quixotic) conditions laid down by Aung San Suu Kyi for leaving the country (as wished by her jailers): release all political prisoners, transfer power to the elected civilian government, allow her to make a 50-minute radio and TV broadcast, and permit her to walk to the airport.

All in all, it’s a terrific one-hour documentary marred only by a slew of typos in the text appearing from time to time on-screen (something I’ve said directly to Anne Gyrithe). This film is readily available on YouTube (view count: 22,400). Do take a look.