Cinema Canada (May 1980)

SHORT FILM REVIEWS Vietnamese refugee Garry Sun Hoan with director Eugene Buia and his son— putting on a brave face in a new world. freighter which took him to a Malaysian refugee camp. From there he came to Canada. It would have been impossible for Garry to actually send an ordinary letter to his parents. He did not, after all, know his parents’ whereabouts back in Vietnam. In fact, at the time the film was made, he did not even know whether or not his parents were alive. For those of us who have never experienced refugee status, the plight of those from Vietnam — or any other war zone — is exceedingly difficult to comprehend. Yet, in Letter to Vietnam, director Eugene Buia — who is himself a political refugee, a native of Romania, where he gained extensive experience as a director and producer of feature films — manages to communicate, forcefully and clearly, the enormity of the refugee’s struggle. Buia achieves this through a voice-over narration of Garry's comments to his parents on life in Canada, newsreel and documentary footage from Vietnam, and silent footage of Garry exploring his new Canadian environment. Buia’s ‘letter’ format encourages viewers to make that leap in imagination of placing themselves in Garry Sun Hoan’s position: of witnessing a Santa Claus parade for the first time, of visiting a typical Canadian supermarket, of en 38/May 1980 countering a newborn Vietnamese baby in the alien setting of a Canadian hospital, of sitting in a Canadian classroom, of reminiscing about a childhood spent in the streets of Saigon. Technically, the film’s stock newsreel footage, and the Toronto sequences, both exhibit, at times, a somewhat disorienting camera jitter and a very frequent use of the zoom lens, which some viewers may find disconcerting. On the other hand, for many, the powerful content of Letter to Vietnam, and the confident, burgeoning quality of the editing (many of the newsreel sequences are repeated several times, to good effect, will make up for any of the film’s minor, technical shortcomings. Jaan Pill Star Ways p.c. Mekanique Productions (1979) p./d. Larry Moore p. asst. Ontario Arts Council cam. op. Fred Guthe, Nicholas Kendall cam. asst. Janek Corydon, Stewart Miller, Keet Neville ed. Bruce Annis m.comp./pref. David Grimes spec. effects/rigs Janek Croydon, Mark MacCammon I.p. Robin Hayle, Marc Kyriacou, Mr. Bink, Andrew Kilgour col. 16mm run. time 5 min. dist. Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre. photo: Trikat Media Prod. In Larry Moore’s first film, a young boy with his Star Wars comic book runs to the front window of a subway train and pretends to pilot a spaceship out of the station and into the black of space. The lights of the tunnel zip by, transformed into red, green, and yellow galaxies, as the boy hits the controls like a pinball machine. Abruptly, Darth Vader looms up and the boy fires at him. When the boy steps out of the ship, Vader chases and catches the boy on the platform — and turns into his mother. It’s a five-minute miniature with a $700 million set built by the Toronto Transit Commission. Moore co-opts the architects’ ‘modern’ effect for his film, and does so successfully ; since, for most of us, a house may be fact, but a subway is still science-fictionbecomingfact. With similar economy, Moore creates galaxies using another fiction already established by others in the big league — notably by Trumbull and the milliondollar special effects people of cinemasci-fi. Abstract filmmakers diddled colors and patterns with sound, but were long out-of-work, until movies like 2001 created jobs. Deep space is mysterious, and so are abstract films : ergo, spaceships in deep space travel through colors and patterns with sound. It’s a fine convention, and for the first little while, Star Ways creates the right, headlong rush with its simple running lights. But the convention is well enough established that viewers are wanting something more to happen, while Moore himself is still just speeding along. In a small and precious miniature, there’s precious little room for confusion. The mother who switches places with Vader at the end is the same woman seen in an opening shot, where she appears to be waiting to the board the same train at the same time. So the audience faces some logical discomfort when Vader/ mother appears on the platform ahead of the boy as he enters the last station. The problem is smali, but so is the film, and the interference it causes seems large. On the platform, the boy runs as though the fantasy has become too solid, and one momentarily remembers the rush and flash of a kid’s mind and the strength of its healthy psychosis. When, after all, the boy recognizes his. mother, Moore is alert enough to show us the warmth between them, so we won't go home wondering what villainy the woman actually represented, As the boy runs from Vader, the camera swings in line with the accelerating train.