Through Their Eyes
Director jackee chang
Countries United States
Duration 74 min
Synopsis
Everyone knows one another and is in everybody's business in small villages. For a long time, the Vietnamese believed that birth defects and deformities are debts for the wrong-doing people committed in their past lives- a karmic justice. There is a level of submission and acceptance to one's pre-destined fate. When neighbors begin to see common symptoms among their children, suspicion arises and accepting one's fate becomes difficult. The filmmaker, an Asian-American, confronts victims affected by the very actions of her own country. As the protagonist meets victims and activists in the fight against this humanitarian crisis, she attempts to bridge the cultural gap between herself and her interviewees. She becomes the vehicle in which the audience can see through her eyes. The film captures the real faces and gives an inside look into the victims' lives on how the war affected the whole of Vietnam. The victims get to tell their stories, struggles, hardships, successes, efforts and failures. The film captures resilient families hardened by their experiences. As the it delves into different generations affected by Agent Orange, it creates an awareness of long-lasting effects of a war that ended three decades ago.
Everyone knows one another and is in everybody's business in small villages. For a long time, the Vietnamese believed that birth defects and deformities are debts for the wrong-doing people committed in their past lives- a karmic justice. There is a level of submission and acceptance to one's pre-destined fate. When neighbors begin to see common symptoms among their children, suspicion arises and accepting one's fate becomes difficult. The filmmaker, an Asian-American, confronts victims affected by the very actions of her own country. As the protagonist meets victims and activists in the fight against this humanitarian crisis, she attempts to bridge the cultural gap between herself and her interviewees. She becomes the vehicle in which the audience can see through her eyes. The film captures the real faces and gives an inside look into the victims' lives on how the war affected the whole of Vietnam. The victims get to tell their stories, struggles, hardships, successes, efforts and failures. The film captures resilient families hardened by their experiences. As the it delves into different generations affected by Agent Orange, it creates an awareness of long-lasting effects of a war that ended three decades ago.