MajideSaiaku
tsuyaku o tsukete kudasai
- 19 Jan 2005
- 1,381
- 59
No, not a rant about Iraq, but about a movie!.
Last night i watched the movie, "Casualties of War", starting Sean Penn, Micheal J. Fox, and Thuy Thu Le.
A deeply moving and adult (thinking and feeling wise) movie, based on a true event of an American army unit in Vietnam kidnapping a Vietnamese girl from her village, raping, abusing, stabbing and eventually shooting her.
It isnt a horror film, the rape scene is from the perspective of the only hero of the movie, Fox's character, PCF Eriksson, but this movie is very raw and real.
The performance of Thuy Thu Le as the kidnapped Vietnamese teenager is heart-breaking and touching, arguably the best and most real acting i have ever seen, its hard to sometimes remember its a movie and that she isnt really suffering horrendously from the four psychotic american soldiers, who are also played well, as young promising men that in another world would be normal, but thrown into the Vietnam war, lost friends, seeing enemies anywhere, they have snapped and broken, still loyal, but now the horrors of war convincing them all "gooks" are a sub-human enemy and show little to no remorce or compassion for the kidnapped girl.
Sean Penn portrays this well, and by the end of the movie you can feel a measurable contempt and hatred for his character.
Micheal Fox also plays his newbie well, a drafted college educated soldier, who is tortured by his inability to help and eventually save the young girl, and his sense of desperation at not being able to get his superiors to do something about the crime, his finest momment i think is in the base bar, an army chaplain comes over to him, clearly drunk, after some talking eventually Fox manages to pass a truely great dramatic momment he isnt ussually known for, as his characters eyes swell up and finally he feels he can tell someone about the crimes he's witnessed.
my "favorate" scene, if you can have one in this type of movie, is on the abandoned broken down bridge, the girl is coughing from becomming ill and Penn's character decides she needs to be killed....to much of a coward to do it himself and nobody else doing it, before someone finally does it, Fox's character shoots into the air, alerting the viet cong in the valley below, and a firefight then occurs.
As the soldiers are firing down upon the vietnamese, American helicopters are seen incomming, and they get desperate, one of the soldiers, Penn's characters closest alley and obviously evil, takes the girl and stabs her twice, while Fox's character, un-aware is in cover in the forground firing down upon the viet cong.
But it isnt over, the Vietnamese girl climbs onto the bridge, and amazingly gets to her feet, clearly utterly broken, she staggers along, seemingly oblivious to the firefight around her, her expression conveys the full horror and emotion of her ordeal, penn's character stares in disbelief as she walks past, and just when i personally thought he could show some human compassion and let her go, but even after all that his empathy towards a fellow human being is non-existant, he yells to the others "she's getting away!" even though she's staggering along pretty slowly and it doesnt matter if she gets away or not, Fox's character relises whats going on and runs to stop them but gets rifle butted by Penn's character, and falls to the ground, unconcious, the four culprits shoot her, she yells and falls over the bridge.
The movie continues after this about Fox's characters fight for justice, but the bridge scene spoke so much to me, a broken and frail vietnamese teenage girl, having been abused beyond all belief, taken from her home and family in her sleep in the middle of the night, I've never felt as much compassion and sorrow for a characters suffering then hers, and the memory of her face will haunt you for a night or two afterwards, thats for sure.
its a movie that you will want to own, but its so powerful that you wont want to watch it very often, but still a movie you cannot regret to see, i recommend seeing it at least once, if only to remind yourself that despite where and why our western armies go to war, the natives are human beings and dont deserve sub human treatment they sometimes get.
GREAT MOVIE!
And also very sad.
Last night i watched the movie, "Casualties of War", starting Sean Penn, Micheal J. Fox, and Thuy Thu Le.
A deeply moving and adult (thinking and feeling wise) movie, based on a true event of an American army unit in Vietnam kidnapping a Vietnamese girl from her village, raping, abusing, stabbing and eventually shooting her.
It isnt a horror film, the rape scene is from the perspective of the only hero of the movie, Fox's character, PCF Eriksson, but this movie is very raw and real.
The performance of Thuy Thu Le as the kidnapped Vietnamese teenager is heart-breaking and touching, arguably the best and most real acting i have ever seen, its hard to sometimes remember its a movie and that she isnt really suffering horrendously from the four psychotic american soldiers, who are also played well, as young promising men that in another world would be normal, but thrown into the Vietnam war, lost friends, seeing enemies anywhere, they have snapped and broken, still loyal, but now the horrors of war convincing them all "gooks" are a sub-human enemy and show little to no remorce or compassion for the kidnapped girl.
Sean Penn portrays this well, and by the end of the movie you can feel a measurable contempt and hatred for his character.
Micheal Fox also plays his newbie well, a drafted college educated soldier, who is tortured by his inability to help and eventually save the young girl, and his sense of desperation at not being able to get his superiors to do something about the crime, his finest momment i think is in the base bar, an army chaplain comes over to him, clearly drunk, after some talking eventually Fox manages to pass a truely great dramatic momment he isnt ussually known for, as his characters eyes swell up and finally he feels he can tell someone about the crimes he's witnessed.
my "favorate" scene, if you can have one in this type of movie, is on the abandoned broken down bridge, the girl is coughing from becomming ill and Penn's character decides she needs to be killed....to much of a coward to do it himself and nobody else doing it, before someone finally does it, Fox's character shoots into the air, alerting the viet cong in the valley below, and a firefight then occurs.
As the soldiers are firing down upon the vietnamese, American helicopters are seen incomming, and they get desperate, one of the soldiers, Penn's characters closest alley and obviously evil, takes the girl and stabs her twice, while Fox's character, un-aware is in cover in the forground firing down upon the viet cong.
But it isnt over, the Vietnamese girl climbs onto the bridge, and amazingly gets to her feet, clearly utterly broken, she staggers along, seemingly oblivious to the firefight around her, her expression conveys the full horror and emotion of her ordeal, penn's character stares in disbelief as she walks past, and just when i personally thought he could show some human compassion and let her go, but even after all that his empathy towards a fellow human being is non-existant, he yells to the others "she's getting away!" even though she's staggering along pretty slowly and it doesnt matter if she gets away or not, Fox's character relises whats going on and runs to stop them but gets rifle butted by Penn's character, and falls to the ground, unconcious, the four culprits shoot her, she yells and falls over the bridge.
The movie continues after this about Fox's characters fight for justice, but the bridge scene spoke so much to me, a broken and frail vietnamese teenage girl, having been abused beyond all belief, taken from her home and family in her sleep in the middle of the night, I've never felt as much compassion and sorrow for a characters suffering then hers, and the memory of her face will haunt you for a night or two afterwards, thats for sure.
its a movie that you will want to own, but its so powerful that you wont want to watch it very often, but still a movie you cannot regret to see, i recommend seeing it at least once, if only to remind yourself that despite where and why our western armies go to war, the natives are human beings and dont deserve sub human treatment they sometimes get.
GREAT MOVIE!
And also very sad.
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