Sometimes I wonder if people who analyze the content and form of art works - film, in this case - ever stop to reflect that everything they see and feel is coming from inside their own brains. Someone who is offended by the sexist implications of flowered wallpaper might easily enough be recognized as a neurotic, but there's no black-or-white in the matter: This is entirely a matter of degree, and therein lies the opportunity for excessively opinionated viewers to attack artworks as being too political or didactic - when the obvious fact is that only those who are excessively political and didactic react thus. Just because someone is careful to appear more neutral doesn't mean he is in fact less extreme, and people who carefully avoid naughty words are often the most obscene in their thoughts. This is a subject so fundamental to spiritual and psychological life that it can't be ignored - but, there are those who try, and their objections to an artwork's content is as predictable as the neurotic origin of prudishness. And, just as predictable is the insistence of prudish people that the matter lies "out there," rather than in their own eyes. Propaganda is information which is intended to influence. Strictly applied, that definition encompasses just about everything that's ever been said or written. When I was very young I liked the poem "Invictus" by William Henley. As I grew more mature I felt less enthralled by it, but I didn't reflect much on the change in my feeling. Then, when I was in my late twenties, I chanced to read John Ciardi's comments about that poem. It's been over thirty years, but I can remember the gist of it: He said the poem was good in structure and various other literary qualities, but (major 'but') it expresses a belief or attitude toward life that excludes it as a work of art. I'm still working on that. Maybe it explains why the official artworks of the Third Reich are so different from the similar kinds of propaganda produced under the direction of different governments, even though they appear so very similar. Context is pretty important, and the two salient aspects of an artwork's context (in my opinion) are the moral clarity and self knowledge of the artist, and the sincerity of the expression. When I saw this film I was an owner of some cheap rental units in Southern California. All of my apartments were rented to Chinese and Vietnamese refugees, and I became pretty close to those families. They all had lost friends and family in the war, on the sea, and in refugee camps. How would one explain in film the death of a refugee child without political implications or heavy handedness? I think I have the answer: Pick an audience that doesn't feel put upon and conflicted by depictions of too much reality.
4 Reviews
Film As Polemic Becomes A Complete Bore.
rsoonsa6 May 2006
A Turner Network Production made specifically for cable television release, this mini-series opens in 1975 Cambodia, at the outset of that nation's hideous reign of terror beneath Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, its scenario merely a bald excuse for preaching a gospel for resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees into an astutely disinclined Australia. Action begins as a missile attack in Phnom Penh places several freshly orphaned children in voluntary custody of Red Cross nurse Karen Parsons (Cybill Shepherd) who doggedly leads the youngsters through Cambodia's killing fields to a refugee encampment located in Thailand, while enduring intermittent harrowing experiences sandwiched between large segments of tedium for viewers. A stagey albeit sincere effort is made to depict the reality of historic disagreement among Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Thai peoples, and it eventually becomes plain to Karen that her entourage of waifs can receive proper care only in Australia, and the little group must therefore leave its temporary sanctuary at the camp. A means of travel must be found to Down Under, and is located by the script in the disreputable person of a sottish smuggler of antiquities, Steve Hannah (John Waters), currently occupied with sneaking Thai art objects into the northern Australian port of Darwin, who is predictably persuaded, since it is the right thing to do, to expand his illicit cargo by taking aboard an attractive American nurse and her refugee charges, with expected romantic and other adventures to follow, including an attack by South China Sea pirates and a punishing gale. This is basically a tract in the service of fostering an unsustainable doctrine, the screenplay attempting to work its wiles in an exhaustingly patent manner, with its narrative occasionally pausing to permit this obvious essay at mind control to eschew storyline logic and continuity in favour of banal sermonizing. A monotonous score repeats its sugary theme to what will be, for many viewers, a point of near emesis. Filmed in Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand, and in a highly effective fashion, the work's dramatic values produce far less pleasure than its camera-work because, when the dreary affair is finally completed, a viewer will simply not be willing to accept responsibility for the unfortunate lot of refugees. As Karen Parsons states in one late sequence, "I was so self-righteous; I didn't think I could be wrong". This, of course, is a lesson normally learned in the real, non-cinematic, world.
A heart terring film thay is based on facts that did happen and to some degree still are in certain areas
jimbronson-806191 April 2019
I had seen this Show soon after it was released on VHS. What I see is some beautiful kids living in horrible circumstances. Kids from Cambodia and Veit Nam Trying to live in a horrible situation created by communists dictators Pol Pot backed by Chinese dictators Mao. There are several stories within one movie. I have met good folks that came from these countries and many are very good folks. In the USA we can not imagine the situation these little kids think is the only world there is and they deal with it. They Manage to have humor in such a world. Folks I have spent many decades with Do Not feel sorry for themselves. I find this film inspiring. What good folks and children can and have dealt with. Some jerk sees this as an advertisement to immigration. It may be in about 1/100th of the film but I do not see it that way. I see several cultures thrown together trying to live. No one feeling sorry for themselves but rather just moving forward regardless. Very inspirational. And a situation that is true and happened. Something we cam all learn from.
Very awsome!
charlesbradleycaitor23 July 2021
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