Screening of “Living in Fear” by Bui Thac Chuyen

Plot: Post-war Vietnam was full of mines and unexploded bombs. Not everyone wants to risk his life clearing them up, but some had little choice. Such as Tai. As a former soldier for the NME, he can’t get a job and has two families to maintain. With true contempt for death, he starts disposing of mines. The viewer also gets the feeling that any wrong movement could be fatal. Tai has had a hard life. As a soldier he was on the losing side in the Vietnam War, which was also a civil war. Even after spending time in a re-education camp, he remained a pariah in the post-war Communist society. Excluded from ordinary work, he keeps himself alive by gathering scrap metal, usually old military material like shell fragments and barbed wire. It is barely enough to maintain his family and he also happens to have two families to maintain. The war separated him from his wife, so he started a new family with another woman. He stoically takes responsibility for both of them, even though he is tottering on the brink of starvation. From a man who fought on the other side during the war, he learns how to make bombs safe. This is a dangerous, almost suicidal job, but thanks to his disregard for death, from that moment on Tai is able to earn his living.