PARK CITY
If Terrence Malick were ever to make a documentary, it would probably look a lot like Nerakhoon (The Betrayal). Long, sweeping camera shots of stunning vistas and incredible focus on the emotions of the characters and their relationship with their surrounding environments make this a documentary that's not for you if you want excitement, action and a real character arc. Clocking in at a mere 87 minutes in length, it actually feels much more like three hours.
But for all the slow movement, this film has some real underlying intensity. It's a story about a family ripped apart by the rise of the Communist government in Laos during the 1970s, a time before which the US dropped three million tons of bombs on the country in the fight to overcome the North Vietnamese, more than the total of all US bombs used during both world wars. With the new Communist government came killings and arrests against those who were affiliated with the former government and the US. Many families scattered in attempts to save themselves.
What's truly remarkable about this film is the breadth. The film took 23 years to complete and primarily follows Thavisouk Phrasavath, a son in one of the escaping families. We start by following him and his family of nine through the capture of the father by the Communist government and the family's escape to Thailand (sans father). Expecting the US to greet them with open arms due to their father's "assistance" with the bombings during the Vietnam war, they relocate to New York only to find little support and hardly any acceptance. Life in their new world is very hard, but they try to acclimate themselves to American culture and make a new life.
Fifteen years later, the father whom everyone thought to be dead calls out of the blue and comes out for a visit. The family is happy for the first time in many years... but that happiness only lasts for a week. The father tells them he is leaving to return to Florida where he has a new wife and two children. Destruction reigns under this news as the family virtually disintegrates in the wake of the father's departure and everyone scatters again.
From here on the film becomes a story of the son's determination to rebuild the family, reconnect with his father and find two of his sisters who were left behind when the family evacuated Laos. Epic, very lyrical in quality and drawing many techniques from cinéma vérité, one of the most striking things about this film is that the main subject is also the codirector and editor. The product of a collaboration of more than 20 years with director Ellen Kuras, famed cinematographer, Nerakhoon is at it's base a tale of family, perseverance and a country betrayed by the United States. It's powerful stuff, but isn't going to catch the heart of anyone who can't sit back and simply let a story unfold piece by piece.
The premier of Nerakhoon was preceded by a screening of My Olympic Summer, a documentary short telling the story of a now-adult son's discovery of undeveloped 8mm film and an unopened letter that reveal a previously unknown rift between his parents just before his birth. His mother felt that she had all but lost touch with his father, who had been increasingly distant and unavailable due to his work - she felt like she was completely living in his shadow. It's a journey through the relationships and emotions that define and divide man and wife, echoed in the son's recent divorce from his own wife. But his parents were still together in apparent happiness. What had brought them back from the brink so many years ago? The summer that his mother shot that undeveloped roll of film and wrote that unopened letter was in 1972 and his parents were living in Munich. His father, a rabbi, was assigned to the Israeli Olympic team and was taken hostage along with the team when the Palestinian terrorists stormed the team dormitories. Several days later, his father was released by the terrorists. A week later his mother gave birth to their son. Sometimes the world has a way of making you reevaluate everything.
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