Vietnam: Fast Forward (2021) Film Review
There’s a certain species of documentaries that are solely realism-based and use a cinematic field to transmit a powerful and relevant message about a situation or site we don’t know much about, or haven’t been willing to explore. What’s very common about these displays of clever editing, micro budgeting, and social commentaries, is the thirst for knowledge that’s accomplished in the audience. You identify with the causes, start inquiring about the facts, and you finally get to be part of a movement that could have been started with a small film.
This is the other side of important filmmaking.
In Vietnam: Fast Forward we encounter ourselves with a country we didn’t know existed today. Vietnam is a synonym for war movies, villain terrorists in action films, and some other derogatory depiction. But through this film, we come to know the reality of a country that’s been trying to get rid of its past for a long time. Vietnam: Fast Forward could be a simple film about people trying to find hope. Instead it’s a fast vehicle of revelatory information about a country whose people already found hope.
The film is centered around entrepreneurship as one of the methods for surviving the traditional myths about Vietnam, its political context and its people. Several generations are depicted in interviews with someone who seems to be on vacation and is actually looking to recollect information for the documentary. At times, Vietnam: Fast Forward could be mistaken for a long commercial about the country, but it’s only an issue pertaining to style and not to the final objective of the film.
Nevertheless, there’s an adoption of personality for the film that makes it a worthwhile, if short, stay in the fresh side of Vietnam, one of the world’s 5 remaining countries with communism as its standard. This “side” of Vietnam isn’t explored, but there’s a pretty interesting sequence that regards freedom as the only way to arouse development and progress. It could be an interesting subject for a conversation about separating the state from the people that live in it.
Regardless Vietnam: Fast Forward plays great as a spark for reimagining whatever we think about Vietnam. Its people are its most iconic and valuable asset, and the film plays along with this theme. Several testimonies are responsible for leading us to believe this is the land of smiles. If you decide to give it much thought and wonder yourself if they should be smiling, then this isn’t the documentary you’re looking for.
In the catalog for films that open your eyes toward a realistic situation with a slight approach, Vietnam: Fast Forward does a good job. It digs deep where it has to, it stays where we want it to (the chef was hilarious, and he’s everything we want as a tour guide!), and it finally delivers a message through amazing people about something that we, the ones that live on the other side of the world and have no chance to take a vacation and go there, should be able to consider when evaluating progress post the monstrosity of war and its effects.
