Heaven and Earth does present us with a welcome and new perspective. The Vietnamese peasant has rarely been considered other than as a prop or static / background characters. Sadly, Le Ly, the village girl does not tell an unusual or unique story. The film succeeds in depicting how literally damned villagers were if they do and were damned if they don't, when it came to the forces that swept through constantly molesting and looting them.
Le Ly was guilty of signaling the ambush (the scene where she is taking off the jacket as she walked through the field.) This speaks to Michael Herr's comment on innocent, which again is something that we are being brought to believe about Le Ly. How innocent one is when they give the signal to someone waiting in ambush becomes rather untenable, especially when it results in death. She is then rounded up as a VC. I certainly don't advocate the physical and psychological torture administered to her by the ARVN and supervised by an American. But she had certainly become more than an innocent bystander.
Her mother wins her release through a bribe, depicting the often-represented theme of corruption within the GVN/ARVN ranks. The idealism of the propaganda fed to the villagers (her included) is quickly shattered as VC boys of her own village rape her. Sadly, this situation, being suspect by both ARVN and VC operating in her village's area compels her and her mother (who has also become suspect by winning the release of her daughter) to go to the city where they can live and become more anonymous.
The `master' seduction scene demonstrates that it is not only the Anglo foreigners with a `Lord Jim' wish to fulfill. He is quite happy to have a young county-bumpkin wrapped like a dog round his feet. But even this misfortune is too good to last. As tortured physically and psychologically, as she has been, dear old mom supplies another assault by demeaning her while pleading to the master as she tries to maintain their position with the aristocratic family.
The Chinese had a saying during the Cultural Revolution, `alive in the bitter sea' and such is Le Ly's saga. No matter where she turns she is stymied. The corruption of the government is again seen on its operative level when the infamous `white-mice' shake her down when she is caught hawking goods on the street. (Her life is one big shake down. So were many of the lives of the boat people, who also had to endure Thai pirates pulling out gold filled teeth and other depravations on the high seas...)
Up to this point she had all my sympathy. Enter Tommy Lee Jones. `Steve' is, to borrow a line from Mad Max, 'a one-way suicide machine.' His fuse had been lit long before their lives collide. By the time his time bomb detonates, there is already plenty of wreckage for the family to crawl out from. His detestable objectifying of her `a good oriental woman' and Larry's Thanksgiving comment `I had me one of them in Okinawa' expresses an amalgamation of chauvinism and racism. Le Ly's resilience is a nice quasi-feminist answer to those self-destructive male characters.
The so-called Buddhist elements were lacking in what they seemed to be attempting. The compulsion Stone has for heavy-handed platitudes in the narration of his films, such as `Same suffering, different skin' actually erode the compelling nature of the story for me. Ultimately, though I like and appreciate Stone's work in films such as Salvador, Platoon, and others that he has been involved with directing or producing, he also maintains a body of work that aren't quite there. I thought Heaven and Earth was an important film, but I feel that this film might have been better if Tony Bui or someone else directed it.
Lastly, the true-life story of the actor who played Le Ly's father, Haing S. Ngor, is HIGHLY recommended for those who haven't seen `The Killing Fields.'
Le Ly was guilty of signaling the ambush (the scene where she is taking off the jacket as she walked through the field.) This speaks to Michael Herr's comment on innocent, which again is something that we are being brought to believe about Le Ly. How innocent one is when they give the signal to someone waiting in ambush becomes rather untenable, especially when it results in death. She is then rounded up as a VC. I certainly don't advocate the physical and psychological torture administered to her by the ARVN and supervised by an American. But she had certainly become more than an innocent bystander.
Her mother wins her release through a bribe, depicting the often-represented theme of corruption within the GVN/ARVN ranks. The idealism of the propaganda fed to the villagers (her included) is quickly shattered as VC boys of her own village rape her. Sadly, this situation, being suspect by both ARVN and VC operating in her village's area compels her and her mother (who has also become suspect by winning the release of her daughter) to go to the city where they can live and become more anonymous.
The `master' seduction scene demonstrates that it is not only the Anglo foreigners with a `Lord Jim' wish to fulfill. He is quite happy to have a young county-bumpkin wrapped like a dog round his feet. But even this misfortune is too good to last. As tortured physically and psychologically, as she has been, dear old mom supplies another assault by demeaning her while pleading to the master as she tries to maintain their position with the aristocratic family.
The Chinese had a saying during the Cultural Revolution, `alive in the bitter sea' and such is Le Ly's saga. No matter where she turns she is stymied. The corruption of the government is again seen on its operative level when the infamous `white-mice' shake her down when she is caught hawking goods on the street. (Her life is one big shake down. So were many of the lives of the boat people, who also had to endure Thai pirates pulling out gold filled teeth and other depravations on the high seas...)
Up to this point she had all my sympathy. Enter Tommy Lee Jones. `Steve' is, to borrow a line from Mad Max, 'a one-way suicide machine.' His fuse had been lit long before their lives collide. By the time his time bomb detonates, there is already plenty of wreckage for the family to crawl out from. His detestable objectifying of her `a good oriental woman' and Larry's Thanksgiving comment `I had me one of them in Okinawa' expresses an amalgamation of chauvinism and racism. Le Ly's resilience is a nice quasi-feminist answer to those self-destructive male characters.
The so-called Buddhist elements were lacking in what they seemed to be attempting. The compulsion Stone has for heavy-handed platitudes in the narration of his films, such as `Same suffering, different skin' actually erode the compelling nature of the story for me. Ultimately, though I like and appreciate Stone's work in films such as Salvador, Platoon, and others that he has been involved with directing or producing, he also maintains a body of work that aren't quite there. I thought Heaven and Earth was an important film, but I feel that this film might have been better if Tony Bui or someone else directed it.
Lastly, the true-life story of the actor who played Le Ly's father, Haing S. Ngor, is HIGHLY recommended for those who haven't seen `The Killing Fields.'