The Sound of the Violin in My Lai
The Sound of the Violin in My Lai | |
---|---|
Directed by | Tran Van Thuy |
Produced by | Mike Boehm, |
Release date |
|
Running time | 32 minutes |
Country | Vietnam |
Language | Vietnamese |
The Sound of the Violin in My Lai (Vietnamese: Tiếng vĩ cầm ở Mỹ Lai) is a short film that examines the history and legacy of the My Lai massacre, an incident of the Vietnam War in which hundreds of Vietnamese civilians were massacred by U.S. Army soldiers. The film investigates the effects of the massacre, with the story centering on the return of American soldiers Hugh Thompson and Larry Colburn to My Lai on the 30th anniversary of the event.[1]
The film was commissioned by the Vietnamese government. It garnered director Tran Van Thuy the Best Documentary Prize at the Asia Pacific Film Festival in year 2000.
The violin referenced in the title is that of American Vietnam veteran and peace activist Roy Boehm.[2]
Plot[]
The film is about the massacre that occurred in Sơn Mỹ on the morning of March 16, 1968, when the US army killed 504 civilians within 4 hours. Despite its dark theme, the film conveys a message of hope and redemption - and the message of forgetting the past and looking towards the future. The main violinist is a US Air Force veteran, Mike Boehm.
Boehm returned to Vietnam in an attempt to atone for atrocities committed by the US military against the people of Sơn Mỹ. One of Boehm's pursuits is playing the violin - both for living people and for the souls of the dead.
The film was shown on Vietnamese television on the 30th anniversary of the massacre. On the same day, US Ambassador Pete Peterson and former President Bill Clinton apologized to the Vietnamese people for this massacre.
References[]
External links[]
- THE SOUND OF THE VIOLIN IN MY LAI
- My Lai Peace Park
- New York Times summary
- The Sound of the Violin in My Lai at IMDb
- 1998 films
- Vietnamese-language films
- Vietnamese documentary films
- Mỹ Lai massacre
- 1998 documentary films
- Documentary films about the Vietnam War
- Documentary films about war crimes
- Southeast Asian film stubs
- Mass media in Vietnam stubs
- War documentary film stubs
- Vietnam War stubs