Educational Media Reviews Online

Agent Orange: A Personal Requiem begins on a sentimental note, with idyllic pictures of Vietnam and Joan Baez singing “What Have They Done to the Rain.” Then pictures of the devastation of the defoliant spraying of the countryside lead to the story of the recent death from liver cancer of the filmmaker’s husband, a Vietnam veteran who expatriated to Japan, where he worked as a photojournalist and refused to have children because of his exposure to the chemical dioxin ‘Agent Orange.’ Pictures of the couple’s life together are interspersed with interviews with other journalists, experts on Asia and Vietnam in particular, who relate the abuses of U.S. policy in pursuing the Vietnam War, and the manipulation of chemical companies.

The film, however, draws its greater power from the relationships the film maker has developed during the filming with a wide assortment of Vietnamese victims, families, and group homes caring for children with horrifying birth defects. While the beginning half of the film seems self-referential, this second half puts the film maker’s courage and empathy at the service of a stream of extraordinary care givers. Over half a million Vietnamese children from several post-war generations have birth defects that left them with missing limbs and other severe disorders. One mother relates how she fainted when she first saw the completely disfigured face of her baby, who at three years laughs and plays with siblings even as he is unable to sit still, and his smiling mouth and eyes are barely discernable. While a direct relationship between this outbreak and Agent Orange is not proven, one scientist explains that the U.S. has persistently refused to fund studies, even though the military has detailed evidence of where Agent Orange was sprayed, and the affected population is equally well documented. By shifting the focus from the harm done to U.S. soldiers to Vietnamese victims, the film becomes for a U.S. audience a meditation on responsibility. Highly recommended for all collections.