Point of Departure

Point of Departure Directed by Robert Kramer France 1993, 35mm, color, 83 min. English, French, and Vietnamese with English subtitles In this film from late in his career, Kramer returns to Hanoi after nearly 25 years to re-envision the city’s struggle through an uncertain and daunting past, present, and future. The Vietnamese characters in the film are diverse: Kramer’s former guide from an earlier visit in 1969; a tight-rope walker in the national circus; a man who took photos of B-52s and another who lost his fingers shooting them down.