MOTHER FISH

Australia, 2010, 92 minutes, Colour.
Kathy Nguyen, Sheena Pham, Vico Thai, Hien Nguyen.
Directed by Khoa Do.

Mother Fish was written by Khoa Do, writer-director of such films as Footy Legends. He was Young Australian of the Year in 2005. He is the brother of popular comedian Anh Do.

This is a drama about boat people. It opens in a Sydney factory, a middle-aged woman going to work sewing, remembering her past, in her mind her sister’s voice describing what she is doing – and then going back into the past.

The film is stylised insofar as the factory is used as the scene for the boat journey. This works dramatically well, the four actors, the two young sisters, a boatman, their uncle protector, moving around the factory floor as if it were the boat. There are also supporting characters including a police inspector, Thai officials, as well as some brutal pirates.

This makes the film more dramatic – though challenging for the average audience. The plight of the two sisters, very young, separated from their father, a gift to one and not the other from their mother. They clash, they bond, one is brutally raped by the pirates, the other dies. The uncle tries his best to protect the two girls. The young fisherman does his best to keep the boat going. The film then returns to the middle-aged woman, her life in the factory, her going back into her memories and walking home – as well as through the fields of Vietnam in her memories.

The film opens with the woman in her kitchen, the radio on with Kevin Rudd being interviewed about boat people and the history of boat people from the time of the Howard government into his Labor government. This background is for the audience to think about their attitudes from 2001 to 2010, as well as the subsequent policies about stopping the boats, the setting up of centres on Christmas Island, the psychological difficulties that boat people experience.

There is an aftermath giving the information that a million and a half people fled from Vietnam from the end of the war in 1975 – but only 900,000 survived.

1. The audience for the film? Australian citizens? Refugees? The tribute to the refugees – and the many supporters of financing and making this film?

2. Australian attitudes towards boat people? The receiving of the Vietnamese from 1975 on? The Vietnamese in Australia – and their hard work and success? The change of attitudes at the 21st century? Political? Social? Headlines rather than real stories?

3. The writer, his background, born in Vietnam? Migration to Australia? Success in film and writing?

4. The stylisation of the film: the opening, the voice-over of the sister describing what her surviving sister was doing? Asking her questions? The woman going to work, the factory? The memories? The stylising of the action on the boat, the performers working in the factory itself, the props in the factory serving as props for the boat? The sand, the water? The woman coming back to reality? The finale and her walk, in her kitchen, making her meal – and what she has experienced?

5. The opening interview, the radio in the background, Kevin Rudd, his policies, the interviewer and the questions? Memories of the Howard government? Of the Rudd government?

6. The woman herself, in middle age, surviving? The hardships of the boat? Her ordinary life, alone, her kitchen, the radio, her meal? Her work, the others at work, the supervisor, her staying back late? Leaving the factory, walking back to her ordinary life with her memories?

7. The dramatising of the boat travel? The fishing boat, not designed for sea travel? The two little girls, the disappearance of their father, the uncle saying he went to America, later revealing that he had died? Separated from their mother, the mother’s gift to one of the daughters?

8. The two girls, their age, their bickering, the mother’s gift? Surviving, water, one washing her fact, the rationing of the water? The bonds between the two girls, their dependence on each other? With the uncle, asking him questions? The young fisherman, wary of him? The attack of the pirates, the brutality of the rape? The girl wanting to wash herself? The dismay of the younger sister? Thailand, the officials? The police? The death of the little girl? The survival of the older girl, with all her traumas?

9. The uncle, his role in the escape from Vietnam, trying to manage, encouraging the fisherman, the broken engine, trying to fix it? The brutality of the pirates? The police?

10. The fisherman, simple, managing the boat? His concern about the girls? The pirates, the brutality towards him?

11. The cumulative effect of reliving this boat trip? Audiences’ appreciation of the sufferings? The difficulties? A greater understanding of the plight of boat people?