In one of his earliest short films, writer/director Phil Joanou makes an experimental film that looks at the Vietnam conflict in a subtle
and creative manner. It follows a poor woman pushing a cart through the streets and later on a series of memories come back to haunt her and
show us how she ended in such a desolate state: a relationship from the past with a teenager (Tony Kienitz), and their happy days were crushed
when he got drafted to go to war. After that, we move to the war abroad, with the soldier fighting enemies at a beach; and the solitary woman's
crusade where she's too desperate and worried overthinking about her boyfriend fighting overseas, and off she goes with heavy drinking.
Mr. Joanou's film does not include any dialogue or any explanation to anything, it's all through the visuals (colorful in the present era,
black-and-white in the past) and as sound all we have is the famous theme song played in "The Deer Hunter", and along with some other hints it's
easy to establish that the film is about Vietnam and the atmospehre of it all.
To make a small film about a war and without almost any budget one
must consider the hard work a young filmmaker had, and the resources he had available to come up with a fascinating work that examines the wounds and
pains of a generation with the longing return of their loved ones, as it happens with any war, any conflict, but the Vietnam case resonated
differently than the previous wars American forces were involved and the welcome back given to many veterans were not the ones they were expecting
it, and life proved to be a scenario of facing another war: the one at home, a war that left plenty of other casualties outside of the ones who
perished in Asia. 10/10.
