RESOURCES FILM REVIEWS

graph compelled the late Dr. Kim’s Benjamin Spock, America’s best-known pediatrician and anti- war advocate, to redouble his Story efforts to stop the . The Road from Yet, Kim’s Story is anything Vietnam but a critique of America’s longest war. It abruptly shifts

DIRECTED BY SHELLY SAYWELL from Kim’s victimization at the NEW YORK: hands of the forces of the Right to FIRST RUN/ICARUS FILMS her victimization by the forces of 153 WAVERLY PLACE the Left. It demonstrates that NEW YORK, NY 10014 after the war was over, a slowly 212-727-1711 South Vietnamese forces follow terrified children fleeing down Route 1, near Trang recovering Kim was made a 48 MINUTES Bang, , June 8, 1972 after an accidental aerial napalm strike. Girl at poster-child for the new Socialist center, had ripped off her burning clothes. Republic of Vietnam’s campaign Photo by Huynh Cong “Nick” Ut, courtesy of First Run/Icarus Films. im’s Story: The Road from to win broader international Vietnam is a moving resolves into an image of a nine- officials in the aftermath of the acceptance. Her government K exploration of the human year-old girl emerging from the attack leaves no doubt as to the forced her against her will to cost of war. It is sufficiently free flames that have already con- appropriateness of the status of move from her rural home to the of cant and broad enough in sumed other members of her Ut’s photograph as an icon of the city of Tay Ninh to be more focus to be of use in a variety of family. She is running down a American anti-Vietnam War accessible to Western reporters. classroom settings, though it will road, crying. Napalm has burnt movement. This picture seemed She was even taken away from prove most useful for courses at off her clothes and much of her to say that, howsoever noble a her school to give interviews to the secondary level and above flesh. The girl is Kim Phuc, and a cause was America’s effort to journalists, who inevitably that address the Second Indochi- still photograph taken of her that save the Vietnamese from com- became sensitive to her exploita- na War or examine the relation- day won combat photographer munism, it was burning their tion. If the film is rather heavy- ship between women and war. a Pulitzer Prize. bodies, destroying their families, handed in this section (after all, The film opens with a graphic The film’s depiction of the dev- and eradicating their culture by the SRV fulfilled Kim’s postwar documentation of an air strike on astation wrought by the air strike means as cruel and as certain as dream of becoming a doctor by a village in Vietnam west of and the disinterest in Kim’s fate any that could be employed by sending her to medical school in Saigon in 1972. The montage displayed by harried Vietnamese Stalinist apparachiks. Ut’s photo- ), it does not gloss over

86 EDUCATION ABOUT ASIA Volume 3, Number 2 Fall 1998 RESOURCES FILM REVIEWS

Kim’s subsequent struggles as a defector and a penniless Asian immigrant in capitalist Canada. Confucianism— Having established that in war there are no winners and losers, The Wisdom of only victims, the film examines Kim’s emergence as an angel of Faith Series peace and a healer of hearts and minds shattered not only by her AN INTERVIEW OF HUSTON SMITH BY BILL MOYERS war, but all wars. The film con- FILMS FOR THE HUMANITIES AND SCIENCES cludes dramatically with her visit P.O. BOX 2053 to the national Vietnam Veter- PRINCETON, NJ 08543 an’s Memorial in Washington, 800-257-5126 D.C. and her reunion with an 1996. 58 MINUTES American soldier who worked with the Republic of Vietnam’s uston Smith has said, sophical discussions can be at Air Force, who told her that he Phan Thi Kim Phuc “Trying to understand the times amorphous, the film also personally called down the fire Photo courtesy of First Run/Icarus Films. Hhuman story without reli- touches on Smith’s practice of and resultant pain from which gion would be like trying to Hatha Yoga and the viewpoints Kim still suffers. fuller historical frame, a clearer explain smoke without fire.” of the people in South Asia. This advisor, Jim Plummer, narrative line, superior produc- Smith is interviewed in the film, This documentary interview is explained to Kim that he had tion values, and a more fulsome Confucianism, by Bill Moyers not a good introductory survey sought and received multiple treatment of Kim’s reunion with for the series, The Wisdom of about the religions of Asia but confirmations from local Viet- Plummer. However, Kim’s Story Faith which was first shown on rather an excellent supplement to namese officials that Kim’s vil- is a more personal account, and public television in 1996. Smith’s be used after a preliminary lage was abandoned. The village its human touch may render it a look at the Chinese view of the understanding of the Asian belief was not even the target, which superior selection for classroom universe is not only concerned structures is in place. was a bunker to its front. Yet, he use. with Confucianism but also Tao- Huston Smith first came to was consumed by guilt from the In one scene, Kim is shown ism and Buddhism. Since philo- wide notoriety in 1958 after writ- moment he saw Kim’s photo- addressing students who are visi- graph (in the Army’s newspaper, bly shaken by her testimony as a Stars and Stripes) the day after witness to war. This is sure to the air strike he believed he strike a chord among students ordered. viewing the film, particularly Plummer maintains that this those cynics among them that incident may have played a role might be unmoved by the ABC in his subsequent plunge into that report’s didacticism. The chal- vortex of alcoholism and social lenge to instructors is to turn the isolation that is not universal, but film’s personal and emotional also not uncommon, among vet- material into discussions not erans of all sides in that war. Like merely of the cost of war, but of Kim, Plummer was able to chan- the complexity of its causes and nel his pain into a devotion to a impact. Kim’s Story possesses higher calling, in this case literal- enough nuances of its own to ly; he became a minister of God. ensure that this task will be an Yet, his relief upon receiving easy one. n Kim’s gestures of forgiveness Marc Gilbert and comradeship at their first meeting is palpable. As a piece of documentary MARC JASON GILBERT is Profes- filmmaking, Kim’s Story is infe- sor of History at North Georgia rior in many respects to an Amer- College and State University and ican Broadcasting Company’s a University System of Georgia special report distributed nation- Distinguished Professor of Teach- ing and Learning. He is the editor ally to mark the twenty-fifth of The Vietnam War: Teaching anniversary of Nick Ut’s photo- Approaches and Resources (Green- graph. The ABC program has a wood Press, 1991).

87