‘Last Days in Vietnam,’ sellout crowd

By Jimy Tallal, The Malibu Times

The Malibu Film Society (MFS) screened the new documentary “Last Days in Vietnam” to a sold-out audience Saturday, followed by a question and answer session with director/producer Rory Kennedy and husband, screenwriter Mark Bailey. The 98-minute film focuses on what led up to the final 24 hours the U.S. spent in South Vietnam before abandoning Saigon to communist forces in 1975.

Last Days in Vietnam poster. Photo from http://vimeo.com/83720339

Telling the story as it’s never been told before, the filmmakers interviewed U.S. and Vietnamese military and civilians about their first-hand experiences 40 years ago. In the process, they discovered a treasure trove of previously undeveloped film footage of events on the USS Kirk, which helped lead thousands of refugees out of Saigon.

“It’s an inherently exciting story, a dramatic story of an evacuation–you have to get people out and the bad guys are coming,” Bailey said.

“I think we all felt like the men who sacrificed to save the lives of these Vietnamese was the story that hadn’t been told,” Kennedy said. “Understanding the events as they happened, what led to the chaos at the end, and the story of these heroic people who went against U.S. policy to do the right thing—it’s a part of our collective history that hasn’t been told.”

Kennedy hopes one of the takeaways from the film is that, “When you make a decision to go into a war, [your country’s involvement] doesn’t end when the war ends. These lessons are valuable even today as we’re making decisions about Syria and Iraq.”

“The documentary tells a story within the larger context of a failed war and a failed policy.”

Although the war officially ended in 1973 with the signing of the Paris Peace Accord, the U.S. maintained a military presence and an Embassy in Saigon.

In 1974, the Vietcong, who’d been terrified of President Nixon, were emboldened by his sudden departure from office. They immediately violated the peace agreement by brutally invading the south, conquering village after village, and murdering thousands suspected of helping the Americans.

The South Vietnamese had only limited resources to fight back, and U.S. officials realized it would just be a matter of time before Saigon fell, putting thousands of Vietnamese working for the U.S. at risk.

Read the full story by Jimy Tallal from the Malibu Times.