Beautiful Country (2005)

"An engrossing, ravishing epic.  Stephen Farber, Movieline

Editor's Note Binh (newcomer Damien Nguyen) is an outcast in his small village and the quiet hero of this affecting drama, which opens in the lush landscapes of the Vietnamese countryside. The son of an American soldier and a native woman, Binh is considered in his country to be "lower than dust." Though he grew up in his grandmother's home, he is forced to leave when his aunt's new husband moves in, taking his place. Binh travels to Saigon in search of his mother, where he meets his small half-brother, Tam, and learns about his parents' life together. When disaster strikes, Binh is forced to flee with Tam, boarding a dangerously small boat of refugees with the ultimate destination of America. The ship is waylaid and the brothers are interred in a Malaysian refugee camp, where they befriend a beautiful young Chinese woman, Ling (Bai Ling). The three make their escape with the help of Ling's dubious connections with the guards, and embark on a voyage to New York that is even more fraught with peril than the last. They find themselves at the mercy of cynical Captain Oh (Tim Roth), as well as horrific conditions of deprivation and desperation among countless other refugees. Binh must constantly fight the class and cultural hierarchies that survive even under these circumstances. Upon arrival stateside, Binh's situation improves only slightly, but he perseveres in his quest to locate his lost father (Nick Nolte). Based on a story conceived by Terrence Malick, the auteur's touch is felt in the sweeping beauty of the photography and the wistful, haunting tone of the story. Nguyen's performance is utterly fresh, rendering the melodramatic nature of the material personal and intimate, while the subject matter itself frames the prescient issue of immigration in a story of universal appeal.

	Bai Ling
	Damien Nguyen
	Nick Nolte
	Tim Roth
	Hans Petter Moland - Director
	Karl Juliusson - Production Designer
	Peter Borgli, et. al. - Producer
	Sabina Murray - Screenplay
	Sabina Murray, et. al. - Story By
	Sam Nazarian, et. al. - Executive Producer
	Stuart Dryburgh - Cinematographer
	Wibecke Ronseth - Editor
	Zbigniew Preisner - Original Music By

Entertainment Weekly
"Handsomely photographed....Inside the Norwegian director's glove of empathy is a fist of unappeasable anger." 07/15/2005 p.53

New York Times
"The basic narrative of THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY is powerful and timely." 07/08/2005 p.E21

USA Today
"It is a moving portrait of life in rural Vietnam in 1990, and it offers a glimpse of Saigon....It has powerful performances and a multi-layered quality. It is an epic journey worth taking." 07/08/2005 p.6E

The New York Times 7 of 10
Still, it is hard not to admire the independence and ambition of The Beautiful Country, even if the film does fall short of its epic intentions. Its best parts are not the overwrought, underwritten scenes in which Binh and Ling pour out their hearts in English that is meant to be all the more poetic for missing articles and auxiliary verbs, but rather those quieter moments that light upon odd, telling details. In their cargo hold, for example, the migrants pass the time by conducting a tournament, complete with side bets, in which contestants compete to see who can rattle off more brand names, sports teams and other useful bits of contemporary American commercial jargon. - A.O. Scott

San Francisco Chronicle 8 of 10
The abuse Binh suffers at home, and his determination to find his father in America in the face of many obstacles, are the subjects of this quiet, moving and beautifully shot drama by the Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland. Binh is a living legacy of America's involvement in Vietnam, and suffers as such. But Moland's outlook is compassionate, and his main character is, first and always, a human being. - Walter Addiego