Daughter from Danang

Any documentary that keeps me glued to the set (I saw "Daughter from Danang" on PBS television) and can provoke compassion, delight, consternation, embarrassment, anger, admiration, and deep chagrin, is, to my mind, a great documentary.

"Daughter from Danang" fits that description. Regardless of my personal reaction to the players in this particular true-life drama, I will never see human relationships in quite the same way again. I'd challenge anybody to see it and come away indifferent.

A masterwork.

I particularly liked John Petrakis's Tribune review where he writes in bold print: "not recommended for young children." There is no blood, no violence, no profanity, but this rating is due to the high emotional content. You have to search through your vocabulary for superlatives here, featured throughout are extraordinary glimpses of faces framed in their own natural environment, the underlying original music is superb and perfectly balanced, there is a wonderful golden-orange sunrise on a quiet riverbank following her first night in Vietnam where the camera finds a dragonfly resting atop the highest leaf, when her Vietnamese childhood memories return they appear to be almost sketched onto a canvas in an impressionistic blur, all beautifully layered together.

This film begins in 1975 as the Vietnam War was ending with Operation Babylift, (an event which, on it's own, is worthy of it's own documentary, particularly the newsreel footage seen here of an American social worker attempting to convince Vietnamese women to send their children to the USA under the guise of an airlift for war orphans), when a 7 year old Amerasian girl is separated from her family and sent to the USA for adoption, supposedly for her betterment, and she becomes `101% Americanized.' Yet in her 20's, when she yearns to meet her real mother, she discovers her mother feels the same way about missing her, so after 22 years of separation, she travels back to Vietnam in what turns out to be one incredible re-unification, beautifully capturing unanticipated depths of an experience that even the filmmakers could never have imagined. Both the mother and daughter are immensely appealing and couldn't express more genuine affection, but both are overwhelmed and completely flabbergasted by the personal and historical abyss that exists between them, leaving them both reeling, as if stepping on a land mine, from the unseen, misunderstood emotional scars left behind from the aftermath of the war. What starts out as a well-meaning attempt to wipe away bad childhood memories only ends up compounded with still more complicated, bad adult memories. One irony here is that her Vietnamese name means `united.' Sometimes in a documentary, the most difficult decision is to let the cameras continue to roll when you know you are intruding into the personal regions of someone's private anguish. But here, it is the best part of the film – a heart-wrenching, emotional jolt for the whole world to see that is simply unforgettable. What this film has to say about love, that it is so much more than just saying words, that sometimes you are called upon to demonstrate your love with deeds, is indescribable.

There may be an inclination to consider the girl too naive and spoiled and to disregard her out of hand. But I would urge people to reconsider this view, as she was unexplainably (to her) separated from her own family, raised instead by a single mother who eventually had no use for her at all, was also raised in one of the more racially intolerant communities in America, which might explain why she was so unprepared emotionally to handle something as simple as affection, a family notion completely alien to her, and which she found, at the time, completely suffocating. ("Get away from me!") Is it any wonder that she might prefer the more emotionally distant relationship with her adopted American family, as that's all she really knows? It should also be viewed in another perspective, as the translator reminded her, that the family pressure and the cultural differences would diminish the longer she stayed. Contrarily, by shortening her visit, which she herself chose, she put even more pressure on herself and her Vietnamese family to finalize what was missing for 22 years into one final day - a sheer impossibility. From a Vietnamese perspective, they were simply trying to include her, permanently, as a member of the family, not just in words, but in deeds.

But what I found so compelling in this girl, who was born in Vietnam, was that she really had no more sensitivity or understanding of Vietnam than the US government, namely none, which certainly demonstrates how easily we can learn to drop bombs on one another, and how inadvertently, by being so Americanized, besides living in material comfort, she was also taught the arrogance and narrow-mindedness of our American values when it comes to understanding the importance or significance of cultures from other nations. What have we learned since Vietnam? Look at our Government in action today, and the contempt we show to other nations unless they agree with us in lock step. What I found so compelling about this girl is how she represents, through no fault of her own, a new image of the ugly American, that looks different but thinks so much like the old image, how little progress we've made on that front, and how far we have to go.

The way Heidi treated her Vietnamese family was a travesty. Maybe it's because I come from a culturally diverse background and was raised to understand and accept cultural differences, but I thought it was common knowledge that in many cultures throughout the world a way to show love for your family is to help care for them financially if you are able. The fact that she took offense to her sister, who has a hole in the floor for a toilet, asking her for money was unbelievable. Instead of showing compassion for her family's situation, she showed nothing but contempt. She said, in effect, "I can't believe they live like this, but how dare they ask me for money to improve their lives?" I'm sure if she would have sent only $10 a month, it would have helped them considerably, but because her Vietnamese family didn't live up to her expectations, she wants nothing to do with them? I have never seen such coldheartedness. And to wipe off her mother's kisses! She had supposedly been starved for affection for 22 years from her adoptive mother, but after only 7 days with her real mother she was tired of her affection? She should have felt ashamed when she sat down to watch the finished documentary and saw her mother still in tears two years after her visit. I feel the utmost sympathy for Heidi's mother and the rest of her family, but I couldn't muster up any sympathy for Heidi... Actually, that's not true. I do feel sorry for Heidi that it wasn't part of her nature to love and accept her family no matter what. I know she was raised by a less- than- affectionate adoptive mother, but she is no longer an innocent 7-year-old. She is an adult who needs to understand and accept that her monetary and, much, much, more importantly, her emotional selfishness will have a lasting effect on many people.

I just saw this movie, it was so difficult and emotional. I was so dismayed and touched by the footage of these children being separated from their Vietnamese mothers. How heart-wrenching it was to watch and I just thank God most of us will never be in that situation.

The warmth and affection Heidi received from her Vietnamese family was very endearing. I have to wonder if she was not at all coached that she would be hit up for money, she seemed so shocked. I also don't want to judge her because I will never be in her situation. Such little monetary support would mean so much to her family. 100 bucks here and there would really improve their comfort. I realize she is not a wealthy woman and is trying to raise her own family and she has a lifestyle to maintain.

I wish she would reach out with clear boundaries to her Vietnamese family. I just think she got overwhelmed and instead of trying to figure out how to work through it she just decided to ignore it.

This is a beautifully shot but often difficult film to watch — mostly because, as a previous reviewer has mentioned, the Amerasian daughter, Heidi, seems ignorant of her cultural heritage and unwilling to learn. We learn that she was raised by a cold woman who kept her Vietnamese heritage a secret, but even as an adult Heidi doesn't do anything to educate herself about her family or their culture. As she's leaving on the plan for Danang, we see her only just learning how speak the language in a cursory way.

The film beautifully communicates how traumatic the separation of half-American children from their Vietnamese mothers was on all sides. Heidi was denied a family, her mother was forced to sleep with an American soldier to save her other children during a war, and the family continues to live in poverty. It is very difficult to watch how shabbily Heidi treats the family after they open their lives and homes to her, but I suppose that highlights how ignorant many of the children who were brought here in "Operation Babydrop" were and are. It is particularly sad to see how judgmental she is of them — she brings them useless American gifts, but gets angry when they ask for help in supporting her mother. It is especially sad when you realize that if she had only taken the time to understand Vietnamese culture, the misunderstanding may have never come up.

Overall, it's an often frustrating and difficult story to watch, but one that is well-told and forthright in its honesty.