(2 of 2)
That's a strong endorsement in a country where the government, and the people, are often wary of compatriots who live abroad. Bui and those working on the film--a collaboration of Americans, viet kieu and Vietnamese--hope that the sentimental nature of Three Seasons will help calm tensions. Bui's older brother Timothy, a music video director in California, is helping communicate with Vietnamese crew members who speak no English. The effort at linking cultures has not been easy, however. A Vietnamese cameraman walked off the set during filming because he was tired of taking orders from an American supervisor and had to be coaxed back; other crew members complained to the producers about the long hours and low pay. "Day by day, we are winning their trust," says Kliot.
One of the actresses, Lola Ai Guimond, is an Amerasian whose Vietnamese mother met her father, a U.S. Army photographer, during the war. The U.S.-born Guimond plays Phuong, an Amerasian prostitute. "If my father wasn't the person he is, I could have been her in a second," says Guimond of her character. After shooting a scene in which Phuong's American father, the war veteran, sees her for the first time in a restaurant where she works as a hostess, Guimond was emotionally shattered. "It is very hard to be acting a part that I know is a real life for many women like me," she says.
Guimond's role is the highlight of her career: the actor playing her father is none other than Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Keitel. His decision to join the cast lent the small film the prestige it needed to attract a financier and distributor, October Films (Secrets and Lies). Keitel, who took two weeks off from shooting Lulu on the Bridge, with Mira Sorvino, to play the part of the veteran, has a penchant for boosting inexperienced filmmakers by participating in their offbeat projects (Wayne Wang's Smoke, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs). "There's nothing heroic on my part," says Keitel. "It's just something emotionally and spiritually I have to do."
Originally, Keitel was smitten by the role of the monk, a gifted poet who cloisters himself in a pagoda on a lotus pond because he is physically disfigured. But Bui insisted that the part be played by a Vietnamese actor, a decision Keitel endorsed. "This story that Tony wrote is an affair of the heart as opposed to an affair of politics, which we all know in Vietnam caused a great many deaths," says Keitel, who donated his $25,000 salary to a Ho Chi Minh City charity. A Marine himself in the late 1950s, Keitel at first supported the U.S. war in Vietnam but later turned into a vociferous opponent. He was originally slated to play the Martin Sheen role in Apocalypse Now but was replaced after a falling out with director Francis Ford Coppola. That piece of film trivia now seems "prophetic," says Keitel. Earlier this month he was filming scenes in a dark, steamy bar in Ho Chi Minh City. The bar, one of the city's most popular, is decorated with helicopters on the ceiling and wartime graffiti on the walls. Its name: Apocalypse Now. "The fates have been good to me," says Keitel. That this movie is being made at all is a remarkable story. Bui has only one film to his credit, a short called The Yellow Lotus, which he wrote, directed and produced for his senior thesis at Loyola Marymount University in 1994. Filmed in Vietnam, it was shown at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, a breeding ground for promising filmmakers. Zhang Yimou, the successful Chinese director (Raise the Red Lantern), was so impressed he had the short played before the debut of his Shanghai Triad at the Telluride Film Festival. Producer Kliot and his wife Joana Vicente, also a producer, pursued Bui and his Three Seasons script and eventually got Keitel interested.
Filming has been a challenge. The story uses more than 70 locations--all in Vietnam--and relies on crew members who don't all speak the same language, and extras recruited from the streets. The part of a street child is played by 10-year-old Nguyen Huu Duoc, himself a child of the streets. Duoc, barely 1.27 m tall and weighing 25 kg, has never been to school. "I just play all day," he says while waiting to shoot a 3 a.m. scene.
The biggest hurdle, though, is the government. "Suspicion permeates everything," says Kliot. Vietnam's Ministry of Culture and Information, as well as the Interior Ministry, must approve any filmmaking in the country. Earlier this year, the producers of a new James Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies, were set to shoot scenes in Vietnam. But after the crew and equipment arrived, authorities pulled the plug, saying Vietnam didn't have the technical expertise to assist with making the film. A French-Vietnamese director, Tran Anh Hung (The Scent of Green Papaya), received permission to make his stylish and violent Cyclo in Vietnam, but he was roundly criticized after the film was released. That had consequences for Bui. Says he: "The police sat me down and said they didn't want another Cyclo."
The authorities are trying to control the film's content by placing censors on the set. Sitting with a script in one hand and a notepad in another, the censor watches a video monitor as scenes are filmed. At one point, Guimond's scene in the restaurant is stopped by the official because one of the male patrons is aggressively groping her. In another, two women are walking to a bathroom in a scene's background. The censor wants the women removed because he didn't think women should be walking together in a bar. In one street scene, a crowd of people rushes to get on a bus, but the censor objects, saying Vietnamese people wouldn't push and shove so aggressively.
The character of the cloistered monk raised eyebrows as well. Censors told Bui they suspected a reference to Communist Party icon Ho Chi Minh, who lived for a while in a house on a lotus pond. "What's difficult is their interpretation of the subtext of what I'm trying to do," says Bui. "They read things into it that aren't there. I am not making an anti-Vietnam film, not at all. But sometimes, to show the good, you have to show the bad. Do I condone the censors? No. Can I live with them? Yes. At least I can make my film in Vietnam." Something that, until now, no other American filmmaker has been allowed to do.
On the screen, Vietnam is where you find it
Hollywood has churned out dozens of films about Vietnam since the war ended, but none was actually shot there. Here's where some of the epics were filmed instead:
THE DEER HUNTER, 1978
Robert DiNiro, Glen Close; Universal Pictures; director Michael Cimino; shot in Ohio, Washington, Pennsylvania and Thailand
APOCALYPSE NOW, 1979
Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen; Zoetrope Studios; director Francis Ford Coppola; shot in the Philippines
RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD, 1982
Sylvester Stallone; Carolco Pictures; director Ted Kotcheff; shot in British Columbia, Canada
RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, 1985
Stallone; Tri Star; director George P. Cosmatos; shot near Acapulco, Mexico
RAMBO III, 1988
Stallone; Carolco; director Peter MacDonald; shot in California
MISSING IN ACTION, 1984
Chuck Norris; Cannon Group; director Joseph Zito; shot in the Philippines
MISSING IN ACTION II, 1985
Norris; Cannon; director Lance Hool; shot in the Leeward Islands and Mexico
MISSING IN ACTION III, 1988
Norris; Cannon; director Aaron Norris; shot in the Philippines
PLATOON, 1986
Forest Whitaker; Hemdale; director Oliver Stone; shot in the Philippines
HAMBURGER HILL, 1987
Anthony Barrile; RKO Radio Pictures; director John Irvin; shot in the Philippines and Washington, D.C.
FULL METAL JACKET, 1987
Matthew Modine; Warner Brothers; director Stanley Kubrick; shot in London and Dorset, England
GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM, 1987
Robin Williams; Touchstone Pictures; director Barry Levinson; shot in Thailand
CASUALTIES OF WAR, 1989
Michael J. Fox; Columbia Pictures; director Brian DePalma; shot in San Francisco
BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1989
Tom Cruise; Ixtlan Film Corp.; director Stone; shot in the Philippines, Mexico, New York and Texas
HEAVEN & EARTH, 1993
Haing S. Ngor; Warner Brothers; director Stone; shot in Thailand