Da Five Bloods

The Vietnam war was the first televised war for Americans. Granted, Americans could see the horrors of the Second War World in newsreels, but for the first time horrific images of the victims of war was beamed directly into the home of every American with a television set. It’s one of the many reasons why the anti-war crowd was so strong and numerous and their clashes with the heavy-handed police so vicious.

Another interesting aspect of the Vietnam War was the African American involvement. America feared a domino effect, should South Vietnam fall to the communist North, with all the other Asian countries following. Effectively African Americans were fighting for the rights of others when they hardly had any themselves. Despite disproportionately enlisting and dying in Vietnam they still faced racial injustice in Vietnam and at home.

The film opens with Muhammed Ali proclaiming “no viet cong ever called me a N*****” and it’s merely the start of a politically charged film where frequent use of archival footage has a powerful impact. Lee’s film is about black relations among each other in modern day America, their discontent at their status at home (both in the 60s and the present day). With the Black Lives Matter movement protesting in major cities across the world, mirroring protests in the film’s archival footage, Lee’s film becomes even more timely than it would have originally been (even his 30-year-old film Do The Right Thing is chillingly timely).

These central five characters are former Vietnam vets. When serving in Vietnam, five African Americans (Paul, David, Otis, Eddie and Norman) find a chest full of gold, which they hide looking to dig it up when it’s safe to do. Many years later, four of them return to Vietnam after hearing of a landslide which may have revealed the location of the hidden gold. After years apart they finally reunite and go on a deadly adventure through the dense and hot forests of Vietnam, retracing and reliving the experiences they had 50 years ago.

The story is told in these two different time periods. Lee uses a different aspect ratio to homage the way news reports of the war were broadcast and whilst certain aspects of the war scenes pale in comparison to films like Platoon, they are powerfully violent scenes (if you can get past the iffy makeup which doesn’t convincingly make the actors look 50 years younger) but ones that lack the grandiose of Apocalypse Now and the sweaty claustrophobia of Platoon.

This isn’t really a bad thing because the isn’t really about that as the film is about the legacy of the Vietnam War as much as it is about black experiences during the war. American films about Vietnam have often marginalised the experiences of both African Americans and, especially, the Vietnamese. From the era of the Vietnam War and the decade preceding it, Platoon stands out amongst propaganda films like The Green Berets and dangerously inaccurate films like The Deer Hunter with its slightly more critical stance of American actions against the Vietnamese people, but it still viewed the war from a white point of view.

This is why in an interview with Sight and Sound, Lee stressed the importance of looking at the war from both an African American and the Vietnamese perspective. The legacy of the Vietnam War (or the American War as Vietnamese call it) is still strongly felt with the landmines littering the countryside (these landmines become a major plot point) and the sensitivities and painful memories around the racist insult “gook”. The misrepresentation of the war by films like the Rambo sequels are also mentioned and shows Lee is at least aware of American cinema’s often racist depiction of the enemy, particularly those of Asian descent. However, even with these positives, it’s not as ground-breaking as it thinks it is. The war scenes still depict the Vietnamese soldiers with a typical of the genre facelessness and even in the present day they don’t make memorable characters (with them either being a tour guide, thug or former sex worker). 

The film is at its best when set in the present day with the relationships and chemistry shared between the four friends feeling authentic. The performances are all great with Delroy Lindo’s monologue to the camera being one the film’s most powerful moments. If there is an issue with the film’s modern set scenes, there are moments that feel tonally all over place. Especially when, someone fleeing a gun fight, steps on a mine and explodes. In the way it was filmed, it almost feels comedic – like the fleeing coward getting his comeuppance. It feels like something that Quentin Tarantino would have shot and it somewhat jarred awkwardly. In fact the whole transition into the final scenes while probably not pointless, feels jarring and not strictly necessary. It’s a good film, but one that doesn’t quite end as well as Lee’s greatest works.