Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this movie tells a harrowing story of a young Ameriasian's journey from Saigon to Texas. Along the way, he sees his mother sexually harassed by her employer, is involved in an accidental death, is battered, starving, afraid, and loses his young half-brother to illness aboard a ship. His closest friend during the journey is a prostitute, who does her work off screen, but it's obvious what she does. The trip also involves some violence, as the overseer on the ship abuses his "cargo," and the captain shoots a man.
Families who see this movie can talk about the difficulties Binh faces while tracking down his father, including poverty, brutal and exploitative traffickers in human bodies and labor, and regulations (he enters the States believing he is illegal, not knowing that his father's citizenship allows him entrance). How does Binh's journey teach him about himself, his mother's struggles, and his father's experiences as a wounded soldier? How does his brother's death drive him to overcome his rage and fear? What are his feelings for Ling, the prostitute, and why do they part?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Provocative and lyrical, THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY tells the difficult story of a young man's search for his identity, through his long-lost parents. Born to a Vietnamese mother, Mai (Bui Anh Tan), and an American GI, Binh (Damien Nguyen) is caught between times and places. He literally stands out (too tall) among his Vietnamese fellows, decried for having "the face of the enemy." In 1990, as Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland's movie begins, Binh has developed precise skills (fishing by hand) and survival instincts (nodding and bowing his head when confronted by more powerful individuals). He comes to discover his own strength and resilience.
He finds Mai in Saigon, where she works for a wealthy family and is sexually abused by the son. Here, as elsewhere, the film shows Binh's experience in lyrical, subtle, often extraordinary imagery (recalling the work of the film's producer, Terrence Malick). As Binh scrubs the foyer floor, Stuart Dryburgh's camera shoots at a sharp angle, looking across the room from his scrub brush up to his mother, standing to dust a table. The son walks between them, cutting across the space as he approaches Mai, initially appearing only as feet -- Binh's head-down view, then fully in frame by the time he casually and cruelly grabs at Mai's bottom.
A convenient accident forces Binh to leave his mother, who sends him with her much younger son, Tam (Tran Dang Quoc Thinh), to find Binh's father, Steve (Nick Nolte) in Texas. The boys land first in a Malaysian refugee camp, lost in a legal limbo. Here they befriend a scrappy Chinese prostitute, Ling (Bai Ling), who provides Binh with a predictable conflict: he yearns for her, wants to save her, and also feels shame for her, as he watches her traipse, red-lipped and mini-skirted, from the guards' barracks back to her bunk with the rest of the refugees.
The three eventually get on Captain Oh's (Tim Roth) ship, where they suffer still more hardships, crammed in a hold, starving amid filth and stormy disarray. Once he arrives in New York City, Binh follows the routine of other illegal immigrants, working in a Chinatown restaurant and worrying that Ling is again prostituting herself, to earn enough money for a different kind of life.
When he finally finds his father, Binh faces more complications, as Steve is blind and resigned to feeling punished for his past. Binh may or may not forgive him, but the more daunting effect is visible in their long pauses and Steve's brief, pained fingering of his son's "ugly" face. They're both enduring the continuing costs of war -- the Vietnam war in particular. Literally blind, Steve embodies U.S. lapses and longings, political and moral missteps, and the guilt that drives and undermines all efforts to do right.
Families who like this movie should also see Heaven & Earth, Platoon, Gleaming the Cube, and Vietnam, Texas, as well as the documentaries, Daughter From Danang and Tiana Alexandra's excellent, though hard to find, From Hollywood to Hanoi.
Rate It!
| Content | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS | adults | kids | ||
Sexual ContentProstitute's actions are not visible, but explicitly referenced. |
 |
|||
ViolenceA murder, beatings, harsh conditions for refugees and illegal immigrants. |
|
|||
LanguageModerate. |
 |
|||
Message |
|
|||
Social BehaviorExploitative traffickers in immigrants, a murderer eludes punishment. |
 |
|||
CommercialismDiscussions of U.S. products (Clint Eastwood, NBA, Folgers coffee, etc.) |
 |
|||
Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoCharacters drink, smoke, do drugs. |
|
|||
