La danse de la cigogne

At last, a film about the Vietnam war, shot in Vietnam and from the VC's perspective.

The film's story is told in the form of personal accounts from a Vietnamese war veteran, who was a cameraman with the Viet Cong army. It takes on a docu-drama mode from this point, intercutting his archival footage of life among the soldiers and their battles, along with "re-enactments" of the lives of the characters involved.

Political ideologies are almost non-existent in this film, no mention of Communism even among the soldiers. Not one of them seemed to question their loyalty to the army. This could be due to censorship issues in Vietnam. Instead, the soldiers are shown as caring, jovial and loving men, with strong emotional ties to their families. Ordinary men. Not the trap-laying and cunning guerilla forces as depicted in many western films.

However, I feel the film falls prey to its very own devices. Its form and story doesn't seem to work together.

The one quality from this film was its cinematography - alone. Well composed mise-en-scene, poetic long shots of the country's landscape, well-lit, overhead crane shots and even slo-mo. However, these scenes were often accompanied by an overbearing, melodramatic soundtrack, that instead of complementing the shots, work against it. Coupled with average acting and a below average script, you feel like you're watching some soap-opera. As a result, an "artificial" and "glossy" feel permeates the drama scenes and you're always aware of their constructed reality. This awareness is further heightened when the film cuts back to archival footage and the modern-day veteran scenes, which were also shot in a similar fashion.

Though not a combat film, the battle scenes also seem to suffer from a lack of authenticity. I say "seem" because I do not know what it was like to be there then. How can a soldier's uniform and face be clean after days in the jungle? Americans that didn't look like Americans. One American soldier even spoke in a weird accent. Such little mistakes to mise-en-scene just further reduces the film's credibilty.

I felt one of the film's best moments was ruined due to poor editing. Two men, who just 30 years ago were enemies, sit below a tree near a padi field and begin chatting. It was an American war veteran and the narrator of the film, the Viet war cameraman. The American wants to forget the past and reconcile differences. The Vietnamese mentions how he feared the American choppers with their arsenal and the other states that he could possibly be one of the gunners then onboard. The film then cuts this scene with long shots of the padi fields and landscapes, farmers ploughing, very long shots of the duo from afar, distracting us from this poignant conversation. The focus should have been on them. To make things worse, the dialogue for this scene was also outside of sync (maybe it was the theatre I was in?).

Thus, we get a film that's based on true accounts, tries to make us identify with the characters and fails because its drama sequences could not fit into and work with its documentary premise. Its efforts at showing a more humanitarian view of the war just could not be brought across.

I would have loved to see the war cameraman talking through his footage (which we see so little of) though.

I wasn't the least surprised to see so few people turn up for this screening. It isn't your regular made-in-Singapore movie, but one which is a first-ever Singapore-Vietnam co-production. It doesn't have recognizable local TV stars in any role, and arguably zero publicity about the movie's background in the regular media in the year that it was made. If I recall correctly, it didn't even have a commercial release here.

A movie about war is never easy to make, and one about the Vietnam war not made by the Americans or the French, but a Singaporean media company? Gee, could it be pulled off? Cine.SG listed this film as the first international production that has been allowed into Vietnam to shoot a film about the war. Not even Francis Ford Coppola's epic Apocalypse Now was granted permission mind you. So how did it fare? Much to my surprise and pleasure, the production values are pretty good, though the storyline doesn't have much to rave about. It's pretty straightforward, and played out at times like a pseudo-documentary, with archived footages of the war put into scene fillers. It follows an introduction by a North Vietnamese war correspondent, Tran Van Thuy, and his journeys on the Ho Chi Minh Trail with his fellow comrades. Interspersed with dramatic retelling of the war and happenings in camp, are mini interviews with Tran himself, as well as an American Vietnam War veteran.

Yes you read that right. While it's about the Vietnam War, the focus here is on the North Vietnamese soldiers, not the usual glorification of the American / South Vietnam view points. While the South does get featured as well, together with its soldiers, they are largely portrayed as lazy and ineffective, often looking after their own personal interests, as opposed to their adversaries, who are committed to the cause, and willing to sacrifice for the good of their fellow men.

Attention to detail is not spared, and I can't help but chuckle on one hand, yet emphatise with soldiers fighting a war given the barest of essentials. Jungle warfare wearing sandals, is no joke. Accompanying the narrative is a hauntingly eerie soundtrack, which fit the movie well, though I won't be one who will listen to it during the dead of the night.

The movie can be easily split into two halves, the first which is about Tran and his journeys, and the second takes a more interesting and sympathetic look at the life of an infiltrator in the South, who sets up family and leads a normal life, until the time comes to rise above and aid his fellow men attacking Southwards. Its romantic theme punches through, and probably personified the suffering of families during times of war, when one is often forced to choose between loyalties for country and family.

It's an interesting film to watch, especially with the viewpoints scarcely seen in films about the Vietnam war. While the war scenes might be a bit amateurish for today's standards, its themes still ring through and true.