NOBLE GOES FROM IRELAND TO VIETNAM AND HITS THE JACKPOT
A biopic of Christina Nobel (played by Deirdre O’Kane), the film Nobel features an Irishwoman from her life as a toddler in 1955 to her arrival in Vietnam during 1989 and beyond in a quest to save children from much of the same destitution that she once suffered in her childhood. The film goes back and forth between incidents in her early years and how she is able to achieve solace by dealing with similar situations in Ho Chi Minh City. Her early life in Ireland includes being witness to domestic violence by her inebriated father, death of her mother, living in an orphanage, rape, subsequent confiscation of her newborn child (whom she never sees again), life in England with a friend, and visit to Vietnam. She is drawn to Vietnam in a dream, thanks to media attention to the plight of many orphans in the aftermath of the American involvement in Vietnam’s civil war. While in Vietnam, she volunteers to work at an orphanage despite skepticism from governmental officials who have tired of outside “aid,” and she eventually persuades an oil executive to provide funds for a facility for orphaned Vietnamese children. The fast-paced story touches on the medical impact of Agent Orange on children some fifteen years after the Americans have departed, including how Vietnamese parents put deformed children into trashbins while the country suffers from the American economic boycott. Credits at the end indicate that she has helped 700,000 Vietnamese orphans, thanks to the financing of additional facilities throughout the country. Directed by Stephen Bradley, the Political Film Society has nominated Nobel for best film exposé and best film on human rights of 2015. MH
SKIN TRADE EXPLOITS THE SKIN TRADE
Titles at the end indicate that 20-30 million persons, 98 percent of whom are women and children, are involved in human trafficking each year. Directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham, Skin Trade involves efforts to free women captives and eliminate an small army involved in the trade. The head gangster is Viktor (played by Ron Perlman), a Serbian with Russian citizenship who buys Cambodians and Vietnamese girls from desperate parents, and then has them transported to Thailand for sale in Europe and the United States. For official and personal reasons, detectives Tony Vitayakul (Tony Jaa) and Nick (Dolph Lundgren) try to break up the operation centered in Poipet, Cambodia, the town bordering Thailand en route to Angkor Wat. Filmviewers see about one hundred captives, some of whom arrive at their destination dead in a shipping container. However, much of the film consists of martial arts displays. Cinematography of Bangkok is impressive. (Except for scenes in Vancouver that pretend to be in the United States, the film is filmed entirely in Thailand.) But the story line is confused, with Nick and Tony friends, then adversaries, and then friends again. MH