Vietnam War: The Vexing Truth

“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother… They never called me n*gger. They never lynched me. They didn’t put no dogs on me. They didn’t rob me of my nationality.”

To begin ‘Da 5 Bloods’ (2020), Spike Lee looks to Muhammad Ali.

Flashing back to the champ’s oft-quoted 1978 interview to commence his Vietnam War joint, Lee presents the black perspective of a war largely appreciated through the experience of white soldiers in films such as Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now’, Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Full Metal Jacket’ and Oliver Stone’s ‘Platoon’.

In ‘Da 5 Bloods’, Lee dives into the specifically black predicament underscored by Ali. The awful irony of black soldiers fighting and dying in a foreign war for a country where widespread racial inequality sees them disenfranchised, brutalised and struggling for their civil rights.

It’s this vexing truth that runs through the film that is essentially a caper about four black American veterans returning to Vietnam to find the remains of their hallowed squad leader and a box of buried gold.

Starring an excellent Delroy Lindo, Chadwick Boseman as squad leader Stormin’ Norman, as well as Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr, Norm Lewis, Johnathan Majors and Johnny Trí Nguyen, ‘Da 5 Bloods’ veers between the poignant moments and violent combat of the past shot gloriously on 16 mm and a group of old friends reuniting in Vietnam in the present day.

Touching on issues of post-traumatic stress disorder through Lindo’s character Paul, who is haunted by visions of their dead squad leader as well as the discrimination heaped on the offspring of black soldiers and Vietnamese women, the film uses archival footage of speeches, protests and the atrocities of what the Vietnamese call ‘The American War’ to depict the distinct reality and cognitive dissonance of the black experience.

While black soldiers fight for a country that seems to hate them, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X are assassinated, and activists like Angela Davis continue to speak on racism, discrimination and the denial of basic human rights.

It’s a reality highlighted by a particularly strange element of the Vietnam War.

A radio presenter named Hanoi Hannah would try and get into American soldiers’ heads by bringing them news of America, their defeats in the war and even the position of their squads.

In ‘Da 5 Bloods’, she speaks to black soldiers directly, calling them “Black GI” and wondering how they can agree to be cannon fodder in Vietnam while their compatriots are waging a civil rights movement back home against the very oppressors lining them up in front of foreign guns.

All this takes its toll and the result of being black in America, fighting its wars and never reaping its rewards is distilled through Paul (Lindo), who sees the buried CIA treasure meant to thank the Lahu people for their help against the Viet Cong as his and his squad’s due.

Released during the ongoing #BlackLivesMatter protests against police brutality and racism, ‘Da 5 Bloods’ premieres at an opportune moment. As millions of Americans scramble to get wise to black history, celebrate black stories and appreciate black perspectives, Lee’s film, despite tonal inconsistencies and the ease with which remains and treasure are found, is sure to resonate.

Much has been said about the Vietnam War, but nothing quite in the way Spike Lee does it.

His signature photo cuts in celebration of black legends and heroes introduce people like Crispus Attucks, who was the first person killed during the American Revolution, and the score, save ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, is mostly Marvin Gaye as well as Curtis Mayfield, Freda Payne, Spinners and The Chambers Brothers.

‘Da 5 Bloods’ isn’t perfect.

There is a double cross from a French villain (Jean Reno) you will see coming, some gratuitous violence, too little speaking from its Vietnamese characters and too much from superfluous white saviours, but there is some education, particularly about the unexploded bombs dropped by the US which have killed more than 40 000 people since the war’s end in 1975.

Stream Spike Lee’s worthy new film because then like now, black lives matter, and so do our stories. Lindo is award worthy, the cinematography is often striking and the moment is pretty perfect.

‘Da 5 Bloods’ (2020) is now streaming on Netflix.

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