From triumph to tragedy: visualizing war in Vietnamese film and fiction

Author: Healy, Dana

Source: South East Asia Research, Volume 18, Number 2, June 2010 , pp. 325-347(23)

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $28.00 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

This article explores ways in which post-war Vietnamese cinema and literature visualize the conflict and trauma of the American War in Vietnam. As Vietnamese writers and directors search for new creative forms to capture adequately the complexity of war experiences, they increasingly remove the conflict from the paradigms of triumph and victory to explore it instead within the paradigms of loss, suffering and trauma. By exposing and validating multifaceted individual war memories, they mount an effective challenge to the established official canon of war literature and cinema in Vietnam and serve as a powerful means of dissent. This article gives special consideration to the Vietnamese film Sóng trong trong so hãi [Living in Fear], released in 2005, which attempts to reconstruct the genre of war film in Vietnam by accentuating humanism and downplaying nationalism and ideology.

Keywords: REPRESENTATIONS OF WAR; VIETNAMESE CINEMA AND LITERATURE; VIETNAM WAR

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5367/000000010791513175

Publication date: 2010-06-01

More about this publication?

South East Asia Research publishes articles based on original research or fieldwork on all aspects of South East Asia within the disciplines of archaeology, art history, economics, geography, history, language and literature, law, music, political science, social anthropology and religious studies. This peer-reviewed journal is published four times per year by IP Publishing in cooperation with the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). SOAS is the leading centre in this field in Europe and one of the most prestigious centres of South East Asian Studies in the world.
Subscribe to this Title
ingentaconnect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites