Heaven

Prologue:
....For you see, the face of destiny or luck or god that gives us war also gives us other kinds of pain:
the loss of health and youth; the loss of loved ones or of love; the fear that we will end our days alone.
Some people suffer in peace the way others suffer in war. The special gift of that suffering, I haved learned,
is how to be strong while we are weak, how to be brave when we are afraid, how to be wise in the midst of
confusion, and how to let go of that we can no longer hold. In this way, anger can teach forgiveness,
hate can teach us love, and war can teach us peace.
( Phung Thi Le Ly Hayslip - San Diego, California, October 1988 )

"Heaven and Earth" is based on the real life
of Phung Thi Le Ly Hayslip. She was born in
the small Vietnam village Ky La.
Vietnam knows about the war. The Chinese,
the Japanese and the French dominated
and oppressed the land for many years.
I don't want to tell everything, just an overview:
Le Ly is a child and we see her peaceful
life changing, in a country destroyed by terrible wars,
1953 the French arrive, 1963 the Americans...
Le Ly is raped by a Viet Cong, tortured by the South
Vietnamese and otherwise it seems she won' t have
luck in any way. I think at this point her life is the
"leitmotif", which stands for whole Vietnam.
Le Ly and her mother head to Saigon, where they work
for a rich business family. She falls in love with her
employer, who impregnates her. Unnecessary to tell, that
she has no luck either. She is humiliated and kicked out.
After she sees no hope and future for herself
she goes to the USA with the GI Steve Butler, but even
then she has no luck, not even with her husband Steve,
who can't gain control of his life anymore and starts
drinking. After his suicide she becomes a successful
business woman and in the "end scene" she visits
Vietnam again. The land has survived, but things have
changed there, her family has changed and Le Ly isn't
any more the child standing in a rice field with her mother.

The movie is underrated in my opinion,
the second part has its weak points, but all in all
it's a masterpiece! Go and get this movie!
I really regret that I didn't watch this movie earlier,
(because I don't like normal "war-movies")
it's one of the most impressive films I have seen
and even a Hedonistic like me realized once again
how "intense", individual, cruel and worthy life is.
Worth considering is as well the soundtrack...
Kitaro did a brilliant work, this music is
as well as the whole film - good and evil, night and day
war and peace, life and death, Vietnam and America
... it's Father Heaven and Mother Earth...and they will
change places again and again.
All things in life will and must be balanced out
..... somehow.
What's Oliver Stone's intention? Does he want to
charge? Condemn? A request for forgiveness?
Or does he just want to show, that we are all
at the mercy of "Heaven and Earth", we can fight
against or we can accept it. Decide yourself!
I close with the words of Le Ly's book:
"For a glisting instant, Ky La dances before my
eyes, then vanishes into memory."

"I could feel the herb-man turn over and sleep soundly in his new bed.
One dream was ending. Another had begun"
*
"For a glisting instant, Ky La dances before my eyes, then vanishes into memory..."
*
(Le Ly, Closing words from "When Heaven and Earth changed places" and "Child of war, woman of peace")

When HEAVEN AND EARTH changed places

The life of Le Ly Hayslip

I would always be in-between...south, north...east, west...peace, war...Vietnam, America.
It is my fate to be in-between Heaven & Earth.
Lasting victories are won in the heart, not on this land or that.
(Le Ly)

With Heaven and Earth -- cobbled together from two autobiographical reminiscences (When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace by Le Ly Hayslip -- Oliver Stone completes his self-declared "Vietnam Trilogy" (the other films being Platoon and Born On the Fourth of July) of films examining the Vietnam War from different perspectives. Heaven and Earth begins in the central Vietnamese village of Ky La during the 1950s. Phung Le Ly (Hiep Thi Le) is an innocent peasant girl, helping her mother (Joan Chen) to tend the rice paddies while being lectured in the ways of life by her father (Haing Ngor). The idyllic peace of the village is disrupted when a jet bomber crosses the skies. Soon the village is decimated as the American-backed South Vietnamese government troops and the Viet Cong engage in brutal warfare in which the victims are the innocent villagers. Le Ly is both tortured and raped. She leaves Ky La for Saigon for a life as a prostitute. There she meets the tall and craggy American soldier Steve Butler (Tommy Lee Jones), a kind but lonely man who isn't looking for sex but for someone to settle down with -- as he says, "I want an Oriental wife." They marry, and Steve takes her back to the United States, where her in-laws look at her not as a wife but as a pet. In the harsh glare of 1970s U.S. culture, Le Ly has trouble adjusting to the American way of life. But not as hard a time as her husband, who, after twenty years in Vietnam, discovers he cannot adapt to civilian life. --
Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Starring Cast

Tommy Lee Jones: Steve Butler
Joan Chen: Mama
Dr. Haing S. Ngor: Papa
Hiep Thi Le
Debbie Reynolds: Eugenia

Supporting Cast

Dustin Nguyen: Sau
Vivian Wu: Madame Lien
Marshall Bell: 3rd Dinner Guest
Robert Burke: G.I. Paul
Timothy Carhart: Big Mike
Michael Paul Chan: Interrogator
Dave Cooper: Bald Onlooker
Dale Dye: Larry
Conchata Ferrell: Bernice
Risa Bramon Garcia
Tim Guinee: Young Sergeant
Billy Hopkins
Michael Lee: Ky La Wizard
Heidi Levitt
Mai Le Ho: Hai
Robert Marshall: Detective
Annie McEnroe: 1st Dinner Guest
Chitra Mojtabai: Supermarket Check-out Girl
Marianne Muellerleile: 2nd Dinner Guest
Phil Neilson: Marine in Helicopter
Irene Ng: 1st Torture Girl
Stephen Polk: G.I. #1
Brad Rea: G.I. #3
Keith Smith: G.I. #2
Vivien Straus: Neighbor's Wife
Tai Thai: Jimmy (age 20)
Tuan Tran: Rapist
Liem Whatley: Viet Cong Captain

Production Credits

Oliver Stone: Director / Producer / Screenwriter
Mario Kassar: Executive Producer
A. Kitman Ho: Producer
Robert Kline: Producer
Arnon Milchan: Producer
Robert Richardson: Cinematographer
Kitaro: Composer (Music Score)
David Brenner: Editor
Sally Menke: Editor
Victor Kempster: Production Designer
Steve Spence: Production Designer
Alan Tomkins: Production Designer
Clayton Townsend: Production Designer / Co-producer
Woods Mackintosh: Art Director
Les Tomkins: Art Director
Risa Bramon Garcia: Associate Producer
Richard Rutowski: Associate Producer
Merideth Boswell: Set Decoration/Design
Ted Glass: Set Decoration/Design
Jack Gammon Taylor, Jr.: Set Decoration/Design
Ha Nguyen: Costumes/Costume Designer
Matthew Mungle: Makeup
Brian Cox: Special Effects
Herb Gains: Asst. Director
Chitra Mojtabai: Asst. Director

Golden Globe 1994
Best Original Score: Kitaro