Movie: The Beautiful Country

I show a film in my Political Film class, called Three Seasons which I have discussed earlier in this blog, and when I researched the movie I was directed to another film about vietnam, The Beautiful Country. I have never heard of it before, it was never released in US, Nick Nolte has a small cameo role in it, and I never got around to finding it on internet and buying it (I have since joined NetFlix which is the ONLY way to preview movies - NetFlix is genius) but I found it in the 3 for $10 bin at the local Movie Gallery. I had to see the end five times before I was satisfied that it really ended that beautifully - I can't get over how intense this film is, I mean tears in my eyes throughout the film and the ending is so peaceful, beautiful. I won't give away any spoilers here, but this is truly an amazing film. "Bihn" is a young man who is half American, half Vietnamese, he is discriminated against, told he is "ugly" (since he is not genetically pure) and his mother gives him money to take a boat (illegally of course) to escape Vietnam (this is 1990's). you can only imagine the deprivation he experiences. But it is worse than I could imagine. He eventually makes it to the US, "The Beautiful Country," and searches for his father. There is an incredible spiritual message in the film - at one point the movie Wall Street was playing on a television, Michael Douglas is giving his speech about "greed is good!" and contrast that with the ending. I mean, when you strip away all the veneer of our lives, what is the one thing that is most important? Love. We search for all sorts of stuff that will make us happy, the perfect job, a power career (most of my students who want to "go to law school" want to go because they are from a working poor rural western PA family and want to be POWERFUL as an adult, the equate that with success and happiness...boy are they ever wrong) and like me, my ultimate airplane (yes I have been thinking about it, just checked out a bank that gives 15 yr loans, 10% down, just under 6% interest, I could buy a used Piper Warrior for about $360 a month) or my ultimate job location (somewhere near NYC or cape cod) - - but none of that stuff is what makes life meaningful. Love. Like the love between a mother and her child, or a father and his child, or in the case of this movie, the love a son has for the father he never knew. I have sent the used copy to my son Nathan, but the new copy from Barnes and Noble will be here soon, if anyone wants to borrow it - this is a definite political film movie for the fall semester.