HEAVEN AND EARTH

The other day I watched Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth, probably his least known film, and, in my mind, one of his best. I first saw it during those slowly dying days of high school, Christmas '93, when Schindler's List had taken the cinematic world by storm. There was little room left for yet another Stone flick about Vietnam. It came, went, disappeared. (Much like Alexander has done.)

I've watched it a few times over the years. It keeps drawing me back. And then I watched it, here, in Phnom Penh, eleven years on, and I picked up so many things I'd never noticed before -- in its story of a young, traditional Vietnamese peasant woman and her life as it's torn asunder by the Vietnam war, both in Asia and America, it achieves a kind of still, Buddhist grace. I'm older, the movie is the same, but it's a new experience now, a richer experience.

So much to love about this movie -- its images, its heart, its blatant, overt romanticism. It is not cynical and hip; it replicates a more innocent, Asian view of the world, where ghosts and fate and karma are all linked with bombs and bullets and helicopters flying overhead.

The main character was criticized as being too passive at the time of its release, too much of a pawn in the story, tossed around from incident to incident -- which, to me, pretty much misses the whole point. Anybody who's spent anytime in Southeast Asia will recognize the raw deal that most young girls have on a continual, daily basis -- the lack of any viable options. The lack of control they have over their own lives. We have so many ingrained notions about narrative, so many expectations. This movie does not necesarily fulfill those, or even try to, which is its strength.

If you've travelled over here, you'll recognize the subtle acts of corruption depicted in the film, the innocent smiles, the wide sky and bright sun. This is a movie about tone and texture and images, which is why the plot gets a little stalled in the end, a little overcrowded, a little rushed.

But so what? Who goes to movies for plot, anyways? We go to experience another life, another view of the world. The narrator of this movie is a Vietnamese peasant woman. Think about that. When was the last time you ever had a female narrator for an entire film? I can't think of one. Let alone a village girl who sees her life as a working out of her own karma. Stone may have a reputation as a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist, but this film proves the range of his interest, the depth of his feeling.

Why would anyone back home get it? It approaches life at an angle that most people have never been priviliged to see from. I loved it back in high school, but I didn't get it; I was intrigued and haunted by its image, its tone, and, most importantly, its fantastically sumptuous music by the Japanese composer Kitaro. As Stone notes in a rambling-but-oh-so-fascinating director's commentary, the score is popular the world over, streaming forth from elevators and taxicabs. It has a heart, this music does.

So does the film. I recommend it. Don't go in expecting a well-plotted, well integrated storyline. Don't go in with your own point of view of the world (although I guess it's impossible not to, right?) Just watch it, and imagine the story from the heroine's perspective, Le Ly Hayslip, and allow yourself to be sucked in. Allow the grace to take over.