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3 June , 2002
A
CINEMATIC TOUR OF
ASIAN -- AND APA -- CULTURE
Movies aren't just entertainment - they can give us insights about our world, if we only pay attention.
| Chinese films attracted Chinese audiences, the Korean film attracted Koreans but not many other Asians, and so on. |
I thought the festival would be a cinematic world tour that would take me to Asian countries in two-hour trips. But the best films were ones that taught me more about America, and how Asian cultures - and, upon reflection, myself - fit and adapt themselves to life in these United States.
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The opening night gala film, "Green Dragon," set the tone - and the level of excellence.
An independent film written and directed by Timothy Linh Bui, a young Los Angeles-based filmmaker who is second-generation Vietnamese American, "Green Dragon" is the engrossing story of the earliest Vietnamese refugees to arrive at Camp Pendleton Marine base in California in 1975 as the Vietnam War wound down for the US, and how they struggled to find their identities as well as family members in the new land. The fine ensemble cast weaves the threads of the story into a Robert Altman-like tapestry.
The film, which is also now showing at the Film Society's Starz Film Center at the Tivoli Complex, is a rich, compelling telling of several story lines. Minh Pham (Trung Nguyen) is a young boy who finds himself living in Camp Pendleton's drab temporary bunkers with his sister and uncle Tai Tran (Don Duong). Minh is constantly on the lookout for his mother, from whom he was separated when his uncle took the children on the Army helicopter out of Saigon. Tai Tran speaks English, and he becomes the camp manager, serving as go-between for the refugees and Sergeant Jim Lance (Patrick Swayze), who commands the camp.
Other plotlines include a former South Vietnamese soldier who feels he should go back to the
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country to be with his family; former lovers who found each other only to discover that the woman has become a miserable "second wife" to a middle-aged man in the hopes of saving her own family members; and a former general who came to the US with his daughters and is waiting resolutely for the war to end.
The boy, Minh, finds solace from his search for his mother when he's befriended by a camp cook, Addie (Forest Whitaker). Addie is an artist who first sketches Minh, then invites the boy to help him paint a mural in the back of the mess hall. The friendship that develops between the two is touching and real - immigrants need not just a legal sponsor to join the society at large, but spiritual sponsors to help them feel more comfortable in their new world.
For Tai, the spiritual sponsor becomes Sgt. Lance, who has the difficult job of keeping peace within the camp and forcing out those who've been sponsored, who are too scared to leave their temporary home. All the actors do an excellent job, including Swayze, who could easily have dominated the film as a "marquee" Hollywood star. His hardened soldier's façade is as convincing as all the other players' roles.
"Green Dragon" tackles human nature on several levels at once, including the fear of the unknown and the pain of losing loved ones, and accomplishes this while showing us what these people went through. For the Vietnamese and older Vietnamese Americans in the audience, the scenes may have been all too familiar, but for me, the film was a revelation. I feel as if I know the history of Vietnamese Americans now in my heart as well as in my head.
Writer-director Linh Bui, who attended the screening, said he relied on interviews and stories he'd heard from his mother when he was growing up to weave together the script. He also said he has other stories to tell; I can hardly wait to see them on the screen.
My other favorite film of the weekend was "The Debut," about a Filipino family in San Francisco,
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and the passing of culture from generation to generation. Ben Mercado (Dante Basco) is a handsome young high school senior who hangs with a couple of Caucasian buddies and is going to go to art school against his strict father's wishes. The film is set against a lavish Filipino community 18th birthday party for Ben's older sister, where Ben's general disregard for his ethnic roots and the generational tensions between Ben and his father as well as his father and his grandfather erupt.
The Filipinos in the audience howled with recognition whenever they saw their own ethnic quirks displayed in the film (like when Ben's friends scrunch up their nose at the smell when they visit his house and the family's busy cooking tons of food for the birthday party, or when one of Ben's Filipino peers calls him a "coconut"). "The Debut," like "Green Dragon," gave me insight into a culture I knew of but wasn't familiar with, and made me appreciate the local Filipinos I know that much more.
That's the power of these films, and I was disappointed that more people didn't take advantage of this opportunity for cross-cultural exchange. After the opening night, which was packed with different Asians and non-Asians, the films settled into a pattern of attracting mainly audiences of the community of the film's origin. That is, Chinese films attracted Chinese, the Korean film attracted Koreans but not many other Asians, and so on.
That's a shame, because I learned about one aspect of the local Hmong community by watching "Split Horn," a documentary about a Hmong shaman and how he and his family had to adapt to life in Wisconsin and deal with the loss of rituals and traditions in America. A warm, funny Hong Kong movie, "Dance of a Dream," blended class consciousness with a plot that reminded me of the Japanese movie "Shall We Dance."
A Korean film called "Asako in Ruby Shoes" was about a lonely government worker in Seoul who finds solace in Internet porn. He falls in love with a conflicted young Japanese woman who poses provocatively for an Internet site. Despite its offbeat plot, the film showed me glimpses of everyday life in Seoul as well as the changing of culture and family dynamics in Japan.
I also saw "Kurosawa," a great documentary about the great Japanese director; "The Unloved," a quiet but smart film about relationships in Japan, centered on a woman who is determined to keep her life just the way she likes it; "Mai's America," the closing night film, a documentary about a Vietnamese girl who comes to Mississippi as a high school exchange student and finds life in America isn't like a Hollywood movie; and one clunker, the Taiwanese movie "Mirror Image," which left me scratching my head.
Still, one mixed review in a long weekend staring at a silver screen isn't bad. I went away from the Closing Night Wrap Party with Indian food in my belly and visions of the Junior Wahines Dance troupe doing Polynesian hula dances in my head, knowing that I feel closer to my pan-Asian heritage.
I'm becoming a better Asian Pacific American. And that, I'm convinced, will help me be a better Japanese American.