I think that this film has an excellent story, but at every turn just kept getting sadder and sadder. Nothing in life ever goes well for Binh as a Bui Doi. He suffers tragedy after tragedy. He finds his mother and so quickly is separated from her. We never find out if she gets to safety or what happens to her after they are separated. I know that Binh sends a letter with money back to her, but what if she’s not there? What if she’s in prison, or dead, or in America, or in another country? Could they ever be reunited?

Tam. TAM TAMIE! This is the major breaking point for. His little brother, left in his charge, has died on the ship of ill conditions. I really thought that Binh taking charge and asserting himself would be a thing that lasted the entire movie. Though he does show more strength later on, it’s not quite with the same voracity as in the moment where he shuts down the gambling game.

I think that the later poker game where he has his break down is such a heartbreaking moment because you can almost see the thought running through his head. If he had known the Vietnamese with GI fathers could fly free, he could have bought Tam a ticket and they would never have landed in Malaysia and met his heartbreaker Ling. They never would have been on the other ship where so many people, including little Tam died. Binh wouldn’t have had to work off debt in barracks like conditions.

I did enjoy the fact that Binh took this turn as his chance to leave. His journey to Texas to find Steve was great. His hitchhiking with the Hispanic family and the Veterans was sweet. I chose to interpret the ending dinner scene as Steve realizing that Binh was his son, and the ending haircutting scene as them assuring each other they would be together until the end.

First of all, the movie was a decent flick. Very artistic, slow and demands some patience, but altogether I enjoyed it. The film does not pull any punches when it comes to showing how miserable these people’s lives can be and I thought it was interesting how it didn’t offer closure or happiness for everybody – Binh loses his little brother Tam and Ling, despite ending up in America, continues her life as a prostitute. Binh and Ling’s relationship was very interesting as well as they are two outcasts clinging to one another in a world of strangers. I had half expected them to stick together until the end, but there really isn’t a happy ending here – they go their separate ways with the feeling of so much left unsaid. I also enjoyed the ending very much. In a Hollywood ending, you would probably see the son reunite the father and the mother or something, but I love how it just ends with the two joking around with each other. To me, this had more heart than the traditional happy ending because it kept it very simple.

Two more observations -

- Movie felt very episodic, with each part having it’s own feel, characters and scenario. Binh is the only constant of course, but the story goes through different chapters – Vietnam, the Refugee Camp, the Ship, New York City, Binh’s Journey to Texas, and ultimately that Texas Ranch or whatever. When I saw Nick Nolte and Tim Roth’s names, I expected them to be more frequent through the movie, but was surprised to see them really confined to a single scenario of Binh’s life. You could really take each chapter of Binh’s journey and analyze it on it’s own because they are very distinct.

- I have to ponder this one for a little longer but I felt that “shoes” were an important, recurring image throughout the film. There are numerous shots of people’s feet throughout the film as well as references to Binh becoming a shoemaker or something like that. Binh is a barefoot servant in Vietnam with his mother, and I remember a shot of him looking at people’s shoes in the Big House. I think shoes can be seen a sign of status or class, and perhaps serve as a metaphor for who we are? Or perhaps the phrase “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” plays a role here?  At one point in the camp, Binh is looking at Ling’s dressy shoes, but then when he sees her barefoot when they are working (I think it’s when it gets all muddy or something) he says he sees who she truly is. I dunno, just something I picked up on. This movie definitely has a thing for shoes.

One of the first things I noticed about Binh, early on in the movie, was that he had a tendency to slouch. In a world where he towered over most people around him, had to duck in market places to avoid hitting his head of knocking down any of the coverings, Binh slouched. Of course, it may have been a habit for him to do so, after living in a place where he was generally too big to most things.

Binh’s tale was a sad one, to say the least. Despite this, Binh wanted for very little himself. He never even really said that he didn’t deserve to be treated the way he was by the family he “lived” with early on in the film. Binh never complained, and only when he realized he would have nowhere else to go did he even ask about his origins.

This is especially evident as the movie goes on. When he loses that place, he finds one with his mother, Mai, and his half-brother, Tam, though it’s short lived. When he loses that place as well, he goes to the next one he can think of. The one where his father might be. But even as he tries to find that place, he loses the one he had been given and asked to protect. Despite his best efforts, Tam dies of illness and malnutrition.

It’s only then that Binh loses his cool. It’s only then that he lashes out, and we realize something else about him. He gambles, a simple game of exchanging English words, and we see that for how little he speaks, Binh knows more English than most anyone else on the ship, save for the actual crew of the ship. Binh, who has been mistreated most of his life, is very intelligent. And it would seem he made a point of learning as much English, and as much about America as he could with his limited resources, because it’s where his father came from.

He makes it to America, where he realizes not only does the woman he love not love him, but that – being the son of a GI during the war – he could have flown to America for free. He leaves then, because by all means he’s a US citizen, and he hitchhikes to Texas. He meets his father, and for the first time since Tam’s death, though it takes some time, Binh seems happy again.

As the film began to draw to a close, I realized Binh didn’t really slouch anymore.

The Beautiful Country poster

I was really nervous when we began the movie. This photo (above) was the first image of the movie we were shown and so I immediately made my assumptions about what the movie could possibly be about. Looking at the image now, I still feel like this does not sum up what the movie is about. I’m not really sure why Binh is essentially the smallest person in this image especially when he was the protagonist of the movie. It’s also really weird seeing Ling wearing a fairly revealing dress when there was another dress in the movie that she wore more often than the one in the poster (but hey, sex sells right?!) Do I even need to point out the obvious about the two white characters who were probably in the movie for a total of 30 minutes having the largest images? Gross.

The movie was beautifully tragic. There was heartbreak left and right and I didn’t know what to expect next. I was on the edge of my seat and would gasp when something I wasn’t expecting would happen. I cried a total of two times but came close to crying a few other times. I really appreciated that the movie shows the struggle between those who are mixed breed and the struggle that they face when neither country really acknowledges or accepts you.

I am also really glad that they made Tim Roth’s character (the captain) an evil white man instead of a white savior, and I am also glad that we were not shown to pity him.

The big question that a lot of us were left asking ourselves was: “did Binh’s father realize Binh was his son?” My answer? Totally. The scene where his father touches his face a couple times in silence was when I felt that he realized it. I loved that there was no dramatic mention from Binh saying things like “CAN’T YOU SEE I AM YOUR SON?!” (yes, I know, his dad is blind), it was subtle and unconventional. I loved that they ended the movie with Binh cutting his dad’s hair and that he was asking questions about sweets in Vietnam. It makes me think that they did this on purpose as a way to showcase what Binh’s father and mother’s meeting was first like. “What goes around, comes around” in essence.