So I'm teaching an honors seminar on the Viet Nam wars and I've been showing movies as a supplement. I've seen a LOT of movies, including many "about" the Viet Nam war (2nd Indochina War to most of the world). So far, we've seen Apocalypse Now, We Were Soldiers and Gardens of Stone. Coming up will be Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill, Green Dragon, Journey from the Fall and The Beautiful Country.
As a veteran, I'm often asked what movies I like or which movies are good. As a veteran, my opinions are strongly colored by my experience and my own beliefs about what happened over there and why, so I'm sure my opinions are far from objective. But, as Sgt. Hazard says in Gardens of Stone "Opinions are like assholes - everyone seems to have one" so I might as well share mine!
Let's take the ones I really don't like first. All of the Rambo movies are really insulting. If folks would just take those for what they are - an excuse to blow things up and reduce the world to black and white - I wouldn't be so ticked at them, but some folks seem to think that those movies have something meaningful to say about the war. Trust me - they don't. That goes in spades for all the Chuck Norris bs. At least in Norris' case he actually served in the armed forces - Stallone didn't. The Deer Hunter won "Best Picture" against another Viet Nam movie Coming Home and others such as An Unmarried Woman. Parts of The Deer Hunter are certainly worthy - I especially like the scene in the bar back home at the end when they sing "America, the Beautiful" but I really detest what they did with the war. Another "best picture" winner was Platoon and again, parts of the movie are worthy but much of it is just awful. I especially dislike the way the platoon acted in the village and all the drug scenes. The last thing you want to be when in combat is high.
So what are some worthy Viet Nam movies? Well, I'm showing some of them, though a number of the American films are not stellar. I would say that Green Dragon is worthy. The first time I saw this, I really lost it (major crying jag) when the South Vietnamese general raised the South Vietnamese flag and began singing their national anthem. For years, it had been kind of a joke in my family because I would often sing the opening lines and I think Peg thought I made it up - but when that scene appeared in the movie, it just hit me real hard. I volunteered in large part because I thought the South Vietnamese needed and wanted our help. It is now clear that not only didn't the South Vietnamese "need" or "want" our help, but that in fact our intervention made the situation worse for them. That crystallized for me in the scene mentioned above. Similarly, Journey from the Fall shows the plight of those who supported the Saigon government when they were placed in "re-education" camps "after the fall". And finally, The Beautiful Country shows the plight of Amerasians that resulted from liasions between U.S. troops and South Vietnamese women.
Of course, movies are not reality; but as I told my class - movies can be art and art often gets at deeper truths.
