Bright Future review - BANANA PANCAKES AND THE CHILDREN OF STICKY RICE by Daan Veldhuizen

The tourists are coming! The tourists are coming! Daan Veldhuizen films the results of tourism in Laos in his great documentary Banana Pancakes and the Children of Sticky Rice, which was presented in the Bright Future section of the 44th International Film Festival Rotterdam.
 
The title of the film is a humorous take on a slighly ignorant categorisation that may symbolise a foreign perspective on the inhabitants of regions in which this film is set. It also perfectly represents a certain type of expectations that people from the Western world have when exploring these places, hoping to find a remote corner of the earth that will take them as far away from possible from their ordinary lives. The driving paradox of Banana Pancakes and the Children of Sticky Rice is that tourism in itself becomes a polarising factor that inevitably ends up affecting both the inhabitants of the village in Laos and said tourists.
 
Because of the polarising effect that tourism has on its setting, it would have been very easy for filmmaker Daan Veldhuizen to take sides, and openly comment strongly on whether tourism is a good thing or a bad thing. Yet, what is ultimately one of the strong points of the film is that it looks at its themes and issues in a very non-judgemental way. Whether it is looking at the disenchanted tourists struggling to get a tour of the wilderness or more vastly documenting the progress of the development of the village as tourism draws more money, roads are being built and businesses are being established, it is very clear that Veldhuizen has little time in patronising his subject and would rather leave it to the viewers to pick sides and start debates. 
Not to mention that, aside from the fly on the wall documenting side of the clash of Western and with the Laos culture, the filmmaker also reveals a type of internal clash between educated people who are more willing to embrace development and those who look upon it in an estranged and slightly more distant manner. This more domestic clash is shown by the two Laos men who dominate the backbone structure of the narrative of the film, one who lives and works according to more traditional ways and the other who has returned to the village from the city to start his own tourism business. 
 
However, every now and again, Banana Pancakes and the Childern of Sticky Rice delves in more poetic territories, bu juxtaposing incredibly deep and meaningful thoughts of the first of these two men, that feel as enlightening and inspired as the highest of prose. These are the moments when the beautiful cinematography takes full advantage of the natural beauty of the country and we the viewers get to experience amazing moments of visual delight and appreciate the explorative nature of the documentary.