The Sapphires (PG). Director: Wayne Blair. Starring: Chris O'Dowd, Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens. Miranda Tapsell. 99 minutes
The anti-American rhetoric is direct and effective, the phrase AMERICAN WAR OF AGGRESSION a recurring, pulsating slur.
Yet who would deny it? Certainly not me, as I stand in the museum and face this photographic account of Vietnamese suffering. Images of the dead women and children of massacred My Lai. Of American soldiers mooning over decapitated Viet Cong, or holding up a savagely disembodied limb like a trophy. Of the bearers of generational birth defects, yet to be compensated for the hereditary effects of American chemical warfare.
There is an American expat in our tour group, and I ask her how the rhetoric makes her feel. It does irk her — 'But who could blame them?'
Who indeed. Just days previous we stood at the Citadel in Hue, within which lies the bones of the majestic Imperial City that was all but obliterated by US bombs following a Communist takeover of the city. Likewise the ruined temples of My Son, near Hoi An, where only a small portion of the centuries old Hindu domes of the Champa kingdom survived the bombing assault of an overzealous US military trying to flush out elusive Viet Cong.
The museum in Ho Chi Minh City (still Saigon to the locals) is now known rather euphemistically as the War Remnants Museum. Its previous name, the Museum of American War Crimes, was less politic, but more suited to the resentful mood inside. Under the circumstances, who could begrudge the Vietnamese their resentment?
There are at least two versions of any war, depending which side of the ideological line you sit. This is their version. It's a compelling one.
This is a somewhat heavy way for me to introduce this reflection on what is really a very light film. But it is pertinent. The Sapphires takes place during the Vietnam War, and in large part within Vietnam itself. Yet it doesn't contain a single Vietnamese character or for the most part represent the Vietnamese perspective.
This is a problem of many war films, which tend to marginalise 'the enemy' in order to wed your sympathy to the main (familiar) characters. But it is a particular problem for The Sapphires, in which the transcending of social margins by oppressed groups is a key theme.
The film follows a group of Aboriginal women