Though it lurches a bit heavily into melodrama toward its close, Aung Phyoe's promising first feature builds an affecting drama of small gestures, silences and everyday sensory pleasures.
By Guy Lodge
Plus IconGuy Lodge
Film Critic
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Third Floor Film Acts of kindness are few and far between in the punishing Myanmar textile factory where young San Kyi (Nandar Myat Aung) makes a meager living, hunched over a sewing machine. When new employee Theint (Nandar Myint Lwin) tells a white lie to cover for her after an unauthorized bathroom break, San Kyi’s face turns positively radiant with gratitude, while Teint merely winks in response. On this simple moment of solidarity between strangers, a close friendship is founded. But in Aung Phyoe‘s tremulous, allusive drama “Fruit Gathering,” the possibility of something more chafes against the women’s insecurities and social boundaries — while an unspoken current of queerness permeates proceedings long before a single, reckless kiss forces characters to address it.
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