For the first time since the liberation of Rangoon, Burma, almost a year previously, the people of the city celebrate the Water Festival with lavish water fights in the vicinity of the Shwedagon Pagoda.

Wide shot looking towards the entrance of the Shwedagon Pagoda with water spraying in all directions. Water spraying from an open water main with people playing in the water; people throw water from and at a parked lorry. People on top of a bus. A Chevrolet CMP lorry with a man on the cab speaking with a megaphone. Nearby a decorative banner is carried at the head of a long line of women carrying pots of water on their heads. Procession of women with the Shwedagon Pagoda rising in the background. Street scene with the Shwedagon behind; a vehicle approaches and passes camera, dripping wet, while in the midground someone wields a high-pressure hose near Bahan Bazaar. More scenes of vehicles and people being blasted with hoses. A jeep tries to pick its way through the crowd; a rear seat passenger gets hit in the head by the stream of water. Chevrolet CMP passes. A jeep gets a good dowsing as it passes a traffic podium. A Dodge 3-ton lorry near the Sule Pagoda. More vehicles being soaked; a jeep uses a civilian bus as cover. A British serviceman runs for cover after a drenching from a gang of Burmese children. A clapped-out civilian vehicle carries advertisements for the 'Central Electrical Service Electrical Engineers' and a 'Machines Repairing Depot' at 164 Shwegondaing Road (sp?). Medium wide shot of an RAF airman reacting badly to a soaking. A [camera?] man sitting in an Army Film and Photographic Unit jeep (with a tripod in the back) is drenched by a sheet of water thrown from out of frame; he gets out of the jeep carrying a Vinten Normandy cine camera.

Notes

The Imperial War Museum's Sound Archive holds an interview with the cameraman of this piece. See related items.

The Burmese Water Festival, also known as Thingyan, is a celebration lasting several days that culminates in the Burmese New Year. Often coinciding with Easter, the festival is subject to many regional variations but will typically last three or four days and feature religious observances, celebratory music, dance and general gaiety, water fights, particular foods and well-wishing and respect-paying visits to elder relatives. Comparable traditions exist in other Therevada Buddhist nations in south east Asia, such as Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.

This film forms a very interesting comparison with JFU 201, in which Sergeant Bryan-Smith filmed a wartime Water Festival in the rural Arakan region.

According to the British Universities Newsreel Database, this footage features in British Movietone News No. 885, released on Monday 20 May 1946. See references below.