Journey from the Fall

This amazingly poignant film is very much overdue. For over thirty years the film industry has put out the same films of the Vietnam War. Each one focusing on the American point of view. Each one forgetting to mention the Vietnamese people who were also affected.

I encourage everyone, of all backgrounds, to watch this movie. It's not only moving but cinematically beautiful. Through this movie, I was able to see my parents' journey to America brought to life. Their words were illustrated and their feelings conveyed through motion picture. While watching the movie, I couldn't help but feel fortunate to be alive in a country where I am free and fortunate that my parents made it through their journey. My parents and many like them, made an ultimate sacrifice, to leave behind their home, their loves, their family -in search of freedom and opportunity in America. Through the movie, I was reminded of a mother's ultimate undying love for her child, a father's unconditional love for his daughter, and the unbreakable bond of family, culture and tradition.

One of the character's mentioned that we can never forget our past…those words never struck truer. No matter what country I reside in, what culture I am raised in, what nation I chose to adopt as my own –I will never forget the sacrifices of my parents', the oppression and degradation of my grandparents and the loss of freedom of my ancestors. I am and forever will be a Vietnamese-American…and proud.

I hope with the release of this film, others will understand the struggle of the Vietnamese people after the war. American troops were not the only ones affected. Although their struggle and pain is undeniable, there were millions of people who were also affected -citizens of Viet Nam were killed, and their rights stripped of them and to this day, they still struggle.

I hope viewers understand the rage and angst Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans have buried deep within each of us. I also hope this film allows the older Vietnamese generation to have faith that the younger generation is proud and appreciative of our roots. We will not forget…we will continue the struggle towards freedom for our forefathers…for ourselves and we will always keep the memories alive.

Thanks to director Ham Tran for such a wonderful film. He is so young, yet incredibly talented. The risks and sacrifice he took for this movie somewhat resembles that of a hero in our community…which is quite a rare trait.

Please see this movie and learn from the lessons...you don't need to be Vietnamese to see it, you just need to be human.

Having been a Vietnamese linguist for several years now, and going to the country several times and putting forth effort to know about the history and the culture, this movie might have affected me more than most white folks in America who weren't alive in 1975 to know about the last 30 years of Vietnam since the "conflict". I feel there are many reasons that a movie like this deserves as much attention as possible. History of the Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon from the perspective of the Vietnamese is rarely touched upon. America seems to have done a decent job at smothering our failure to "liberate" Vietnam and the repercussions to the Vietnamese people over the years as a small footnote in history. There are plenty of movies about American soldiers DURING the conflict, but not about Vietnamese people, and the hardships of the years after our withdrawal. The information is there if you look into it, but I'd say the majority of people from my generation and younger don't know much of what happened unless they made a proactive effort into learning more. Journey from the Fall is a momentous step in making known the hardships of many emigrants that reached America - and others left behind. Journey follows a few of the families who had husbands taken away to re-education camps. They were concentration camps led by the Communist soldiers, for Vietnamese who fought against the North during the war. Amongst hard labor and endless torture, the "students" were given lectures on the failures of America and the fruitless efforts of faith in anything that isn't Communist. Their lives were filled with propaganda and an endless struggle to resist the breaking of their will to conform. In this section of the story, Journey follows Long, one of many who was a former South Vietnamese officer who juggles the appeasement of the cadre and his desire for freedom. He, and a handful of others do their best while being moved from one camp to the next to provide their family news of their survival, and also try to escape by way of the river, or across a mine infested jungle to safety. Between Long's journey to freedom from the camps, his own family is trying desperately to smuggle themselves into a small fishing boat. Long's mother, his wife Mai and young son struggle for their lives and sanity in a boat that has a malfunctioning engine, and while drifting hopelessly along the ocean they are bombarded by pirate attacks. Some go insane and lose their will to live after being repeatedly raped and terrorized. Journey from the Fall could have ended with the arrival of the survivors to America, but instead has one final chapter about the efforts to conform to American life. Reaching America is only part of the struggle.

With three major story arcs (the camps, the fishing boat journey, and arrival in America), Journey has a lot to juggle in establishing the main characters, and providing enough drama and information of each major event in one movie. It could easily have been made into a trilogy. Make the first movie about the camps, the second would be the journey to America, and the third could be life once they reached America. Nonetheless, they did an admirable job at providing enough drama and familiarity with each of the three sections without sacrificing greatly in emotional impact. Journey should have been more harsh on the struggles of escaping the country. From what I've been told about and heard from survivors, this movie is more tame than it could have been. If it gave a little bit harder of an edge into the torture and struggles of the re-education camp victims, it might help bond our emotional attachment. I'm not saying to increase the violence, but that it should have at least implicated a little more than was provided. Also, the struggles of drifting to sea to an unknown fate could have been more frightening than what ended up on screen. For a 135 minute movie and so much happening within that time frame, it's like taking a 1000 page novel and shortening it to 400 pages. You KNOW there's a lot that is missing when all is said and done, and while the gist of the pain and struggle is presented, it also seems like with more time given, the pain of their struggles would be more apparent.

As I mentioned before, Journey from the Fall does an excellent job putting information that would work for an amazing movie trilogy into one film. It's not perfect, mostly because I feel that there was too much to juggle into one movie. At the same time, Journey is an important film, because it sheds light on a time in recent history that hasn't been given much attention. There are horrible historical events around the world that we don't hear about, but many movies exploit those events, or movies aren't made about them at all. This is one of those few movies that has its heart in the right place. It's not just education, but also a solid drama that rings true from almost every direction.

First I must add that I am an Vietnamese (American Born) growing up without the strong Vietnamese community ties and a little of the isolation and cruelty depicted in the movie. This movie gave me a visual of some of the stories that my father could not talk too much about and others that I could have never have known about if it weren't for talking to people that I met over the years, who spoke of refugee camps and such. I could identity with at most half of the movie personally... So there is still some objectivity in terms of how I view the quality of the movie. The cinematography was dramatic and you could see the camera work reflected the different times and places vividly. I can only say that you should watch it... as much as you are moved to watch Schindler's list and movies similar (as this movie is commonly compared to for the Vietnamese Diaspora)... this movie takes a single POV of a family and the interactions between people that intertwine. It is a dynamic movie and every actor, how big or small a role, even those of the officer in the camp, are so strong. A conversation between two minor older actors was so touching and helped established the heart of the story. The time line jumps are disorienting, you are caught off guard why some events happen much like a season of Lost, but by now... you know the broad story of the Boat People and the Vietnam War. The movie depicts the time in between that the news doesn't carry and the time jumps help carry the POV of each actors view.

If you go... bring tissues and be prepared to be changed when you leave the theater.

Make no mistake about it,the Vietnam war was a nightmare for all who were present. It was a war that we could have lost (and did!). Until now, any story of the Vietnam conflict was told mainly from the American perspective. Journey From The Fall is the first film (at least for us Americans) to tell the story from the Vietnamese experience. The plot seems to be a trilogy of stories during the fall of Saigon. A family is torn apart when the father is imprisoned by the Viet Cong and is sent to a re-education camp (read that as concentration camp)to be whipped into a proper Vietnamese citizen. The rest of the story concerns the rest of the family who manages to make it to America & be a part of the fabric that is the American experience. This is a film that is at times brutal to watch, but is a testament to the endurance of the human spirit. About 98 to 99% of the film is spoken in Vietnamese with subtitles, but don't let that keep you from seeing this heartbreaking, but uplifting & powerful film.

Filmmakers are always trying to find ways to innovate, trying to find a new story or way of telling their story that hasn't been done. The great majority fail in this quest, but there are a select few that do manage to change things, or to open a new door.

Journey From The Fall is one such film, a film that tells a story that other filmmakers have not. It is also a gorgeous, meticulous and incredibly moving piece of art. These two things coupled means that this film will hopefully stake a place in the medium, and have a chance to reach a wide audience -- because this is a story that must be heard.

I, myself, am Caucasian, and do not have ancestors that had to bear an inhuman journey in some stagnant, oppressive hold of a boat, crammed in with other families in the faint hopes of escaping the aftermath of the Viet-Nam war. And yet, I was so, so moved by this film. Its ability to connect with the viewer transcends race and history. Knowing that you're watching a true story, knowing that these people and so very many others have gone through what these characters have, I promise, it will rip your heart out.

I think the biggest question we have about prospective movies is, 'why do I want to see this?' to which I'd answer that this is such a huge piece of history that we simply haven't heard a thing about. All those stories about American troops going off to the war, coming home, living with the ghosts of the VC, agent orange, the Khmer Rouge, rejection at home, etc etc... with all of that, we have no idea what happened in that country after we left. It's time to start finding out -- and this film is the first step.

This is truly an achievement of artistic and technical brilliance, and stands out in every category a film can. Bring your tissue, you won't soon forget this.