Yatanabon
Yatanabon
Tin Maung
Myanmar – 1953
Screenplay: Shwe U Daung (novel), U Pe Thein
Production: A1 Film Company
Language: Burmese
Duration: 123 min
Color: Black and White
Synopsis: In 1945, at Yatanabon Residence in Mandalay, a joyless marriage collapses when Khin Sein Kyi leaves her husband, Htun Myat, and their three children, to elope with Thet Nyut. Once free of the bonds of matrimony, she realizes that her lover is far from an honorable man. Soon after they have a child Thet Nyut deserts her, while her husband Htun Myat, after years of waiting, has remarried. When she is disfigured by a burn, the only place she can turn to is back home, where, under disguise, she is able to take up position as a governess in the household of her former husband. Being close to her children is both a relief and a source of great torment. The pressure of keeping up a façade and the constant reminders that her family is trying to move on eventually takes its toll, and Khin Sein Kyi dies brokenhearted in the hands of her dear husband Htun Myat.
Notes:
Yatanabon is based on the popular nineteenth century melodrama “East Lynne” by Ellen Wood and has been adapted for the stage under many names and by different playwrights. In Burma, the novelist Shwe U Daung wrote a version entitled “Yatanabon,” which became the basis of Maung Tin Maung’s film.
Produced by the A1 Film Company, Maung Tin Maung directed and starred in the film alongside Kyi Kyi Htay, Tin Tin Mu, and others, including a number of the director’s family members. Shwe U Daung’s novel was part of the university curriculum in the 1950s, which made it a popular choice of subject and an excellent timing for a screen adaptation. Yatanabon took three months to complete, recalls film director Thein Htut, and was awarded the Burmese (now Myanmar) Academy Award for both best film and director. The film had screened at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) in 1957, and the Czech National Archive kept an edited two-hour version of the three-hour film, one of a precious few surviving copies. The present copy is a combination of the materials found there and those held by the Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV) archives.