VietNamNet Bridge – American students are finding a new movie “Don’t Burn” an invaluable aid in understanding the Vietnam American war.

"Don’t Burn" reflects the spirit of Dang Thuy Tram’s Diary

Professor Erik Harms and director Dang Nhat Minh.

The movie has been hailed by Professor Erik Harms, who is the foremost expert on Vietnam and the war at Yale University.  

“I’ve watched many films about the Vietnam War. Most of them are about guns, bullets and killing technology very few of them are about culture,” Prof. Harms said.

Talking with Yale students, director Dang Nhat Minh said: “In the war, many people wrote diaries but no diary has a special fate like Dang Thuy Tram’s (on which the film is based)”.

American audiences have asked the Vietnamese director whether he is influenced by the film making style of France, Japan or South Korea? He said: “I’ve watched many French, Italian, Japanese, Korean and US movies. I like films by director Ozu from Japan, Kim Ki Duk of South Korea but my movies are Vietnamese movies, in Vietnamese style and in my style”.

At the Holly Cross School, over 40 students read the Dang Thuy Tram’s Diary before watching Don’t Burn. Prof. Ann Marie Leshkowich and Prof. Diane Niblack Fox have added the diary called Last Night, I Dreamed of Peace to the curriculum this semester.

Prof. Leshkowich believes the film can help Americans access and understand Vietnam. She said that two other movies by Dang Nhat Minh – When the Tenth Month Comes and Love the Countryside – are important teaching materials at the sociology and anthropology faculties.

Don’t Burn were screened at the Brown, Weslyan, Smith, Holy Cross, Yale, Harvard, Washington, Temple, Pennsylvania and will come to Princeton, George Mason, New York and Cornel universities. The show at the New York University on November 14 will include Vietnam veteran brothers Robert Whitehurst, Fred Whitehurst, who kept the diary for 35 years.

VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre 

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