Heaven And Earth

Heaven and Earth follows Platoon (1986) and Born of the Fourth of July (1989) to conclude director Oliver Stone's Vietnam War trilogy. Where Stone won Best Director Oscars for both previous films, Heaven and Earth proved a box-office disaster and went unrecognised by the Academy, though Kitaro bagged a Golden Globe for his haunting score. It's hard not to suspect that racism underlay the commercial failure, for where the hit movies addressed the sufferings of white American soldiers played by Hollywood stars, Heaven and Earth focused on the fundamental victims, adapting the true story of a young Vietnamese woman, Le Ly, who goes from village girl to freedom fighter to wife of a US marine struggling to adjust to life in America to reconciliation in Vietnam. Superbly made, with a stunning performance by Hiep Thi Le as Le Ly, and powerful support from Tommy Lee Jones, this is intelligent, harrowing filmmaking that attempts to understand and bridge the divide between nations traumatised by war. Unfortunately heavily cut to bring it down to a multiplex-friendly running time, the often brilliant 135 minutes on show suggest a longer modern classic ended-up on the cutting room floor. --Gary S Dalkin