A WILD FIELD

Canh dong hoang

Director Nguyen Hung Hai / 1981 / Vietnam

The first feature film to be made in Vietnam since the end of the war, it is a story about a couple and their baby living in a no-man's land.

By day, the couple eke out a subsistence living; by night, the husband joins Vietcong patrols. Their wild field is regularly strafed by U.S. helicopters.

This remarkable film from Vietnam overcomes a poverty of production facilities in that country to make a touching and mostly undidactic film about peasants living dangerously in wartime. Shot and edited with skill, it gives an excellent account of war from an unfamiliar viewpoint. Note: The actors playing American soldiers are obviously Vietnamese. Audiences should quickly accustom themselves to this flaw in detail.

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