Vietnam

It's been many years since I watched this mini-series. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a gem, but with flaws. The flaws are the usual ones you find in Australian films/TV, namely, poor scripts and acting.

Be that as it may, on my first viewing of this mini-series, I felt that Nicholas Eadie and Nicole Kidman put in great acting performances. In brief, the mini-series is about the consequences to a family when conscription to the Vietnam war is introduced in Australia. Nicholas Eadie's character is conscripted by the nationally televised 'lottery' and he has to go off to fight in Vietnam. Nicole Kidman plays the sister of Eadie's character in the mini-series.

The scene where Nicole Kidman's character is being interviewed on radio, and her brother calls in is very moving. This scene is her greatest performance in acting, I think. I've found her acting overly mannered in subsequent movies where she plays Americans, e.g. "To die for".

The second time I saw this mini-series (hey, I liked it enough to watch it the second time it was on t.v.) it was Nicole Kidman's performance which remained the standout element of the production.

Australia has produced some of the best mini-series on television. Along with "Through my eyes" (based on the Lindy Chamberlain story), Vietnam is right up there as one of the best produced in Australia. Other brilliant Australian mini-series include Joh's Jury (fact based account of the trial of infamous state premier Joh Bjelke-Peterson) and any number of ABC TV mini-series on police corruption in Australia.

I have seen a DVD of this in Australian chain stores inside the last year or two. So, may be still available now, new.

In the mid 1980s The Vietnam War was very much a part of pop culture . Movie like PLATOON , FULL METAL JACKET and HAMBURGER HILL were making money at the cinema while book stores were full of publications dealing with accounts of the conflict and there was even a top five hit in the British pop charts by a singer called Stan Ridgeway who sang about his life being saved in 'Nam by a marine called Camouflage . What a lot of people ( at least in Britain ) had forgotten if they even knew was that Australia had also fought in the conflict and this mini series tells the story of one family's war

Vietnam was shown on BBC1 in the summer of 1988 with not much fanfare , but what wasn't mentioned was that two episodes would be edited into one . This certainly a good idea on the part of the BBC down to the simple reason that the early episodes are very , very slow as they introduce us to the characters of the Goddard family . The father is a politician in the Aussie government while the son gets drafted into the army while the daughter becomes a teenage rebel , and somewhat embarrassing to say it now but I couldn't help thinking that despite being a fairly good actress the Goddard daughter was one of the plainest looking girls I'd ever seen in an Australian series . The name of this actress ? Nicole Kidman . I digress

As I said the first two episodes ( Or first episode if you saw it in Britain ) crawls along at a snails pace and the series doesn't come into its own until the action switches to Vietnam . This show doesn't sugar coat the face of war : Vietnamese women are tortured and raped by the American army , young Goddard is seconded to an American special forces team and watches as prisoners are tossed out of a helicopter AFTER they've told the Americans what they've wanted to know , a villager is executed in public by the VC after refusing to hand over all the food supplies , but the most memorable and distressing scene features an Aussie conscript who stands on a mine . It's a special sort of mine that doesn't explode until after the victim takes his foot off it so the soldier has to stay there under the blazing jungle sun till he can take it no more , panics and dies .

I notice some people who have voted at this page ( Most especially the regular voters ) haven't been too impressed by Vietnam . The structure is rather uneven with a very slow beginning and the final episode(s) does hit you over the head that the war split Australian society but I can't help thinking the rather lukewarm response by some voters here has more to do with the fact they were expecting large battle scenes as in PLATOON and APOCALYPSE NOW . This is a foolish attitude since the Australians fought the conflict in a different way way from the Americans . Australia being experienced in anti guerrilla campaigns in Malaya and Borneo recognised the fact that this wasn't a conventional war therefore fought the war by sending small patrols into the villiages and jungles and went out of their way not to antagonise the inhabitants , a stark contrast to how the Americans conducted the war

Thanks to the internet there's now a large database of information of the Australian experience during the Vietnam conflict . It makes interesting reading

Nicole does indeed play a brilliant part in this production. As she waits for her conscientious objector boyfriend to be released from prison, her expressions are priceless. The look of concern, relief then her happiness are very touching. Her strong red curly hair reinforcing the inner strength of her character. The music was also well matched with the haunting 'Woodstock' from Joni Mitchell finishing off what is a milestone in Australian Television and probably the first serious look at this wonderful actress and a bearing on what was to come. I remember telling anyone who would listen to keep an eye out for this outstanding young actress after seeing her performance.

I recently got this sent from Australia on Region 4 DVD Box Set. Released Aug '05? I remembered it from the mid 80's mini series and was intrigued to watch it again. I would disagree that the opening episodes are slow and boring, it has to be like that to give sufficient time in the story to show the politics of Australia and Australian society. You couldn't just rush into the war footage without the background context (espcially the decision to have conscription). Maybe a fault of TV drama is to gloss over the context in search of a good story, but I don't think that has been done here. There is a young Nicole Kidman playing the lead female role and a capable cast of Aussie actors in support. Most would be familiar to viewers of Aussie soaps and mini-series of the period. Overall a watchable min-series.

Absolutely awesome seen a second time around - brought me to tears which takes a lot of doing - I wonder if we'll be looking at the same sort of movie about Iraq/Afganistan in 20 years time & wondering why the hell we were there. Fascinating to see Nicole Kidman in her first major film role. I do feel that the American soldiers were stereotyped as rapist, drug using murderous bastards - that was the only scene that didn't ring true. Listening to the 70's music was great. I was still at high school in England when the Vietnam War was happening - Seeing it from an Australian perspective is different. I now have a 21 year old Vietnamese girl as my daughter in law - her parents were both refugees after the war so it all seems a lot more personal.