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FAR FROM VIETNAM: Robert Kramer takes a passionate look at "post-Vietnam" Vietnam in his documentary, Starting Place. The work of documentary filmmaker Robert Kramer is long overdue for re-appraisal. His best-remembered film (or, for that matter, his most notorious), the pseudo-documentary Ice (1969), was full of strange satire which, in a few years under Nixon's rule, would emerge to be more truthful than one would have imagined. During this period, he was also active with the Newsreel collective, which produced numerous films of social protest. In 1969, Kramer and fellow documentarians Norman Fruchter and John Douglas journeyed to Vietnam to make the feature, People's War, which explored the causes of the North Vietnamese. During the days of "Hanoi Jane", this was surely a controversial act of any American filmmaker. Nearly a quarter-century later, Kramer went back to Vietnam for this follow-up feature, the ironically titled Starting Place (1993). The film opens with interview footage of political activist Linda Evans (and no, not the star of "The Big Valley"), who had protested the war in Vietnam. Then, we begin to see Kramer's footage of the Vietnam of the 1990's. The opening moments do not clash with what follows-- rather they address the same issue from opposite ends. Evans' sentiments correlate with Kramer's modern-day exploration: the Vietnamese are thought of as people, not "the enemy". To be certain, the past still hangs on, yet the Western World slowly begins to seep into this country. The spirit of Ho Chi Minh now exists in a museum, yet many of the countrymen whom Kramer interviews nonetheless show immense respect for their leader. One memorable sequence features a man looking at the remnants of the war, now encased in glass, and humbly talks to the camera about how Ho Chi Minh nonetheless gave he and his fellow countrymen a sense of honour, as they were collectively fighting for the good of the state, as they fought "the invaders" (meaning, the Americans). Kramer shrewdly puts this moment very early in the film, to quickly dispel any controversy about his subjects. Forget for a moment the complex politics, and the mixed emotions that usually surface when thinking about the Vietnam war. The people whom we are supposed to refer to as being "on the other side", are instead portrayed nobly and honestly. Their actions are understandable under any blanket of war-- they were merely defending their country from invaders. It is the thing you would expect of anyone to do under those circumstances, regardless of whether the invaders were perceived to be "the good guys" or not. Starting Place is not a film to re-open old scars. It neither condemns nor praises America, nor North Vietnam for that matter, for its actions during the war. It soberly offers portraits of everyday people who were nonetheless caught up in a big situation. They proudly admit that their own pursuits were secondary to the "common good" of defending their soil. Starting Place foremost portrays its people as people. Further, it offers a candid look at a people and a country that few in the Western World may have seen, at least under peaceful circumstances. The West is slowly making its way into Communist Vietnam, yet there is no McDonald's on every corner. Instead, the coming of the West is shown in more subtle ways. For instance, one man had spent years translating three novels into Vietnamese-- his favourite being Don Quixote. Kramer's often-oblique framing suggests how the West has seeped its way into their culture. A recurrent device is to employ a rack focus to highlight an object in the background, as if to say, "This is new". Even so, the Vietnamese are still portrayed as resourceful people in a partially tamed frontier. What lingers in the memory are shots of nearly vacant, rusting bridges, and the green that still ekes its way throughout various brown locales of the iron city. The most unforgettable image though, is that of people making sandals cut from old tires!  "The younger generation doesn't understand." Starting Place is a quiet film, justly so, capturing the calm after the storm. Throughout, you hear the adults mentioning how that to their children, the Vietnam war is barely a memory. They however humbly admit that the war nonetheless gave them a sense of duty towards their country. Kramer also candidly lets the camera film conversations, especially among Vietnamese filmmakers, and this same sense of political commitment comes through. Thusly, this is a humbling film about people and a place that the Western World has a stigmatic response to due to the mixed emotions over the war. There is no sermonizing to be found here, nor for that matter any condemnation. (Just ask yourself, what would anyone else do under the same circumstances?) The interesting title gives light to the overall mood: let us move on. Perhaps the most radical thing one could attribute to this film is its apparent simplicity. This indeed is a starting place to progress, but to continue making waves, we have to learn to understand each other. Finally, the film ends where it begins, in an interview with activist Linda Evans. She candidly speaks about her protesting over the Americans in Vietnam, and for civil rights. Then we learn that she is currently in prison for her radical acts. This is a rather sobering revelation, in a number of ways. In the quarter century since Ice, Kramer is still being a radical filmmaker, but in this case, he is doing so in rather quiet ways. At first, this rather humbling film is slightly revolutionary in offering the Western World a gentle portrait of a people we have mostly seen in combat. As we watch these residents of a Communist country proudly talking about serving their country, we think of our own system, and foolishly surmise that these people don't know what they're missing. However, ending the film with this revelation about Linda Evans' incarceration forces us to question our own rights in the land of freedom. If a citizen in a Communist country was as much of a dissident as she, fighting for beliefs which are diametrically opposed to the government's, they would certainly be silenced in one form or another. But the addition of Evans in this documentary adds yet another blur to the film. The silent beauty of Starting Place is all of the contradictions that Kramer points to. In other words, in his sly way, he is asking us how different these cultures really are. Ultimately, everyone in this film operates on some belief system that is different from the Conservatives of the West. And perhaps I was affected most by the movie in the hours, even days, after seeing it. Once the screening ended, I took a long walk in the damp fall night to think about what I just watched. Above all, I was moved by the enormous sacrifices made by the people within this film. Perhaps everyone within the so-called underground scene should be made to watch this. It is one thing to call oneself radical, but to actually be as noble as Kramer's subjects and exercise one's beliefs, be it for a universal or extremist cause, at any cost, that is the true definition. Starting Place speaks very softly, but it resonates for a long time. Perhaps the best revolutions are the quietest ones. (Originally published in ESR #11; Text Copyright Greg Woods (2004 - 2010) |