Vietnam: An American Journey

• Watchlist

Healing the wounds of war. This powerful and unprecedented report, first by an American filmmaker after the military conflict, movingly documents the human and physical scars of a damaged country as it tries to rebuild the lives of its people and heal the wounds of war. My Lai -- The emotional peak of the film is a woman at the site of the massacre who tearfully describes the tragedy and how she managed to be one of the few survivors. She was unknown in the U.S. before this film's theatrical release in 1979. "A fascinating and deeply moving informative guided tour through ravaged but resilient postwar Vietnam by a sensitive, enterprising filmmaker." -William Wolf, Cue Magazine * Human rehabilitation -- a Center for the Redignification of Women who had been wartime prostitutes, a center to treat drug addicts, an orphanage with U.S.-Vietnamese children, a physical rehabilitation center for patients who lost limbs from post-war land mine detonations * Physical rehabilitation -- a Swedish pulp mill project, a French-sponsored bicycle factory, a UN project to rebuild the war-damaged palace at Hue * Cultural events -- dramatic opera, humorous circus performers, patriotic ballet, solo musicians, visits to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, a War Crimes museum * Work -- in factories, markets and rice padis Side trips to a UN refugee camp for Cambodians who fled to Vietnam to escape Pol Pot, exclusive interviews with government officials and ordinary Vietnamese also are part of this historic film. Wartime action is intercut with today's Vietnam. Many locations had never been filmed before.