This
short film was made possible by the “Anti-War” Movement and the Eighteenth-Century
Vietnamese poet Nguyen Du. The Vietnam War is over, but the nation is not at
peace—far from it. Millions of refugees (known as “Boat People” in the Western
media) fled persecution from the victorious North, braving starvation, the elements,
and the predatory violence of Thai pirates to start life again at zero in the
West. A young boy will endure all such perils in Ray Leve’s short film, The
Tale of Kieu, which screens during the 2019 Asian American International Film Festival.
It
is not immediately clear why the film title alludes to Vietnam’s great epic
poem, but it is safe to say water represents great danger in both. We watch a
rag-tag boat of refugees ration their water as they bake in the sun—and then
the pirates attack. It is a hard fate, but somehow hundreds of thousands
managed to survive. If only they had a fraction of the media and NGO support
marshalled for certain (but again, not all) refugees today, but they were a
politically inconvenient reality for the so-called “peace movement” and their ideological
allies.
Tale
is
an impressively well-made film. In fact, it was lensed by indie cinematographer
extraordinaire Sean Price Williams. However, it views more like a scene taken
from a longer feature instead of even a proof of concept short. While watching
it, we definitely get the sense of prior events being alluding to and there is
very definitely more to come for some characters.
Still,
the quality of the production definitely leaves viewers wanting more. It is
also a subject that deserves greater attention and commemoration. Maybe the
last really significant film about the Vietnamese refugee experience was Ann
Hui’s Boat People, a 1982 HK production starring a young Andy Lau.
Tale
of Kieu is
a visceral a jolt of historical memory and hopefully the start of something
bigger. Recommended as an effectively constructed work of indie cinema and a
conversation starter, it screens Tuesday (7/30), with the documentary Seadrift,
as part of this year’s AAIFF.
