A WILD FIELD
Vietnam, 1981, 95 minutes, Black and white.
Toi Lam, An Thuy.
Directed by Hong Sen Nguyen.
A Wild Field was the first film to be made in Vietnam after the end of the war. It is a straightforward story about a couple and a baby living in a zone declared a no-man's land by the Americans, a navel, which if attacked, would be the way of destroying the whole body. This view is put forward by Vietnamese actors as Americans - and the Americans are presented, frequently caricatured, as were for instance the Nazis and the Japanese in the propaganda films from the United States in the '40s. This means that the couple and their baby are made to seem heroic, the communist cell of Viet Cong resisting the horrible invaders is made to seem even more heroic. Clearly, this is a view of the war from the North Vietnamese perspective -and has a validity as an intensely-felt point of view hostile to the Americans. It is in complete contrast to such treatments as John Wayne's The Green Berets. In the meantime there have been the many films about the war and its disastrous consequences for American society as well as the reappraisal in The Deerhunter and Apocalypse Now. A Wild Field seems to be a simple basic film compared with the American films.
Much of the black and white photography is crisp and vivid, even beautiful with its use of natural symbols of water and flora and fauna. However, there are the emotionally contrived sequences focusing on the couple and their child, and the ugliness of the Americans as they strafe innocent villages. The film has strong propagandistic dialogue with photos of Ho Chi Minh prominent etc. (as to be expected). The poor baby does a lot of crying - and at times seems to be a very unwilling co-operator with the action of the film. Small budget, meagre facilities are apparent in a film which is well-made - though would be dismissed as sheer and mere propaganda had it come from a more sophisticated film industry.
1. Impact of the film? Interest, entertainment? A point of view on the Vietnam war? Simplistic and propaganda? Comparisons with American treatments of the war? Previous American propaganda films?
2. Quality of black and white photography? Clarity, editing? The westernised romantic score? The use of the score for emotional response? Close-ups and action for emotional response?
3. The picture of the Vietnamese war? Facts, the North Vietnamese point of view? Socialism, the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Cong cells and their validity? The intrusion of the Americans into the peaceful Vietnam way of life? Helicopters, guns, bombs? Casualties? The Americans seen as the aggressors? The implications about the unification of North and South Vietnam - and the omission of a South Vietnamese point of view?
4. The basic plot: the couple and their work, home on the rice fields? The romanticism of their relationship? The baby? The details of the house and its simplicity? Work in the fields? Love for the baby - and the danger when it fell into the river, the husband striking the wife? The comment on male-female relationships in Vietnam? Traditional roles of husband and wife? The breaking through tradition with the involvement in the war?
5. Work by day and working with the Viet Cong by night? The meting of the cell? The propaganda? The sabotaging of the American invasion? The techniques of hiding and camouflage? The crossing roads by means of carpet to obliterate footprints etc.? The skill of the Vietnamese against the Americans - heightened for propaganda effect?
6. The boat and its destruction, hiding in the water (even hiding baby in a bag)? The menace of the helicopters, the danger, the strafing?
7. The Vietnamese soldiers, the camps - and too much smoke? The wounds and their being tended by the couple? Clashes and friendships?
8. The final attack? The panic? The death of the husband and the wife's grief - heightened for an emotional response to the effect of the war?
9. The portrait of the Americans? Helicopters, strafing? Photos? The theory of attacking the navel in the no-man's land? Vietnamese playing Americans - with Vietnamese mannerisms and lack of American mannerisms? The office, the discussions, the social (with its seeming decadence, especially for the westernised Vietnamese women)? The photo of the wife and child and the birthday celebration? The irony of the photo with the crashed helicopter?
10. The simplistic presentation of issues? The antagonism towards Americans?
11. An example of small budget film-making from a communist country -impact on Vietnamese audiences, universal audiences?
