From Rachid Bouchareb, the Academy Award® nominated director for Outside the Law and Days of Glory comes his first Oscar® nominated film, Dust of Life. The film features Son, the child of a black American officer, and his Vietnamese mother are trying to leave Vietnam. But without American documents, they are forced to stay. On coming home from school one day, Son is picked up by the Bô-doï (Vietnamese soldiers) who arrest the children roaming the streets of Saigon. Orphans, shoeshine boys and delinquents, they are the dust - specks of life - of a decomposing world. Packed into two trucks, eighty children are ferried to the rehabilitation camps where they are forced to submit to the order and ethics of the revolution. All attempts to escape end in the tiger cage before the departure for Fanta Hill, where there's a terrible secret Son will come to understand. With Bob and little Haï, he decides to risk another escape and build a raft to sail down the river to the Mekong and from there to Saigon, to the sea and perhaps even to the U. S.
M**.
Based on a true event
I thought this movie was better than the 'run of the mill' movies based on a true event.Boys taken off the streets and herded into the forest, where they were made to work all day...real hard physical work.Guarded by soldiers with guns, who weren't afraid to use them...there was evidence of physical punishment..This one boy (who could write) started a diary...then (with two other boys) planned an escape...The escape went well...'till things started going wrong. I won't mention more, as it may spoil your enjoyment of the movie.Well worth watching
R**D
Powerful and moving story about children 'of the dust.'
The 'Dust', of course, in the title refers to the orphaned children, many of them born of American soldiers during the period of the Vietnam war (and many of them abandoned by those American soldiers). Vietnamese people often referred to them after the war as children of the dust as many were orphaned and forgotten by their American fathers.One of those children was my Daughter. But never forgotten, but for a twist of fate, as I searched for her and her mother for 15 years until 1990 when I finally found them. So this story touched my heart in a very powerful way.English sub-titles are hard coded in to the film and are easy to read. But I really believe that you could still follow along with the story line without them if they weren't available. The film is that powerful. If you are interested in life in Vietnam immediately following the fall of Saigon in 1975 and what life was like for children of the 'dust', you will enjoy this movie
S**S
Abandoned
My daughter's former boyfriend's mother is Vietnamese who tried to conceal his black father's true identity which angered and frustrated her son for many years. I am not sure if she's ever admitted the truth. He is a tall goodlooking brown skin guy who looks like an African-American basketball player. I feel sad for the boys in this movie and real life children in Vietnam who desperately want to connect with distant fathers who have abandoned them. "Darkie" is one of the sad characters in this highly emotional film.I am trying to contact the ex-boyfriend to share this movie which might salve his wounds.
R**E
yes it is an excellent movie - Bouchareh makes powerful ones (Days of Glory)
yes it is an excellent movie - Bouchareh makes powerful ones (Days of Glory)...and it probably reflects the reality of post-US-invasion Vietnam and the situation of these kids very well.. But I find it a curious film, a bit emotionally dishonest to be frank...as it seems to cut out what was thirty years of war from 1945 -1975. And while the treatment of these kids is, frankly, unforgiveable, how is that Bouchareb ignores the 4 million (that is the figure I have heard most recently) killed, and many more tortured and wounded by the U.S. military intervention? It is as if he magnifies what is, when all things are considered a minor tragedy into a major one, and shrinks the major tragedy to naught. There isn't even anything about the fathers who abandonned their mates and kids. So while I appreciated the film, in the end I found it disturbing and in a way, frankly dishonest.
C**O
Very Good
Good movie, very moving.
T**X
In French and Vietnamese with English subtitles, all regions
Poussières de vie (Dust of Life), Director Rachid Bouchareb. A 1995 Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, it's a sad recounting of the sort of thing that happens when people make poor choices (reproductive or otherwise): and the aftermath. Based on a true story.
L**Y
dust of life dvd
good dvd on subject of Vietnam children left behind by American soldiers. worth watching.
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