HEAVEN AND EARTH
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1994 Michael John Legeros
Writer, director Oliver Stone (PLATOON, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, grassy knoll picnicker :-) ) Based on the books WHEN HEAVEN AND EARTH CHANGED PLACES by Le Ly Hayslip with Jay Wurts and CHILD OF WAR, WOMAN OF PEACE by Le Ly Hayslip with James Hayslip Cast: Tommy Lee Jones (THE FUGITIVE, UNDER SIEGE) Joan Chen (THE LAST EMPEROR, TV's "Twin Peaks") Haing S. Ngor (MY LIFE, THE KILLING FIELDS) Hiep Thi Le MPAA Rating: "R" (Presumably for rape, war, and related atrocities) Running Time: 140 Minutes
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"Me and men don't mix."
- Le Ly
Director Oliver Stone completes his "Vietnam Trilogy" with HEAVEN AND EARTH, a story that's told, for a change, from the perspective of "the other side." Based upon the real life story of Vietnamese peasant Le Ly, Stone delivers another satisfying, but, this time, heavy-handed lesson in war and peace.
The story introduces the simple rice-farming community of Ky La. It's a lush paradise in Central Vietnam, relatively unscathed until the arrival of the Viet Cong in '63. Young Le Ly (Hiep Thi Le) watches her brothers join the Communists, who return one night to torture and rape her. (The 'Cong, that is.) She escapes the bedlam by fleeing to Saigon at age 18. There, she works for a wealthy, married master who, promptly, gets her pregnant.
And all this before turning 20!
Later on, Le Ly meets a nice American soldier (Jones). They get married, he's nuts, and her life takes another terrible turn when she moves to America. All, so she can return to her homeland, many years later, and deliver a touching message about the value of strife and suffering....
Taken at face value, most of HEAVEN AND EARTH is an interesting and, ultimately, satisfying examination of war. But the director lays it too thick this time--hammering every point across at least a dozen times too many.
His most annoying technique is how he punctuates every Important Moment with a short, slow-motion montage of Important Images. This bit works well for, about, five times, then grows grating.
Of course, after the first hour, the viewer is already pretty numb from the raw drama. Happily, at the ninety-minute mark--when Tommy Lee Jones shows up--Stone takes a breather and lets some levity into his film. Granted, it lasts for all of twenty minutes, but, oh, how sweet it is!
Stone mines some surprising humor out of Le Ly's arrival in America. Classic bits include her first encounter with a full refrigerator and a wide-eyed visit to her first supermarket.
As the supremely oppressed Le Ly, newcomer Hiep Thi Le is quite a find. She displays a good range of emotions and some surprising signs of subtly. Tommy Lee Jones is equally watchable. He's at his most menacing, though, in his later scenes. Both Joan Chen and Haing S. Ngor barely register playing Le Ly's parents. Go figure.
Look for Debbie Reynolds, who makes her first screen appearance in over twenty years.
Technical credits are all very fine, with the exception of a bit too much filtered lighting. What's the haze for, Ollie?
Bottom line: Oliver Stone completes his "Vietnam Trilogy" with
HEAVEN AND EARTH, the solemn and staggering story
of real-life Vietnamese peasant Le Ly. With exceptions
for the director's sledge-hammer style, this is fairly
satisfying stuff.
Grade: B
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