21 and a Wake-Up toys with the disparity between conceptions and realities; the war, the people and the country portrayed in director Chris McIntyre’s new film deviate from those we have been exposed to in the past. As the first American movie to be filmed in Vietnam since the War, it pioneers a new vision of Vietnam, one based on the director’s unflagging love and respect for the country and its people.
The film premiered Oct. 29 in Chicago with a diverse turnout of celebrities, United Service Organization volunteers and locals. The film features lead actresses Amy Acker (How I Met Your Mother, Private Practice) and Danica McKellar (The Wonder Years), as well newcomers like Mark Warner and JC Chasez (N*Sync).
Following strong-willed nurse Caitlin Murphy, who is stationed during the end of the war in Vietnam, the film is a two-part succession of her wartime experiences. Based on a combination of real stories from Vietnam War veterans, the first half of the film portrays Murphy’s struggles coping with her responsibilities at the hospital. The second half of the film focuses on her personal journey upriver into Cambodia to rescue her deceased friend’s illegitimate child. The authenticity of both story and location is a true testament to the movie’s accurate depiction of the reality of the Vietnam War.
Inspiration for this project stemmed from McIntyre’s personal experience serving in Vietnam from 1968 to 1971. His job, linked closely to The Phoenix Program, was to capture North Vietnamese, Chinese and Russian electronics that were shooting down American pilots. After his initial tour, he went back for two more, driven by his motivation to help and protect the Vietnamese people.
“I always wanted to make a film about Vietnam because I love Vietnam and the Vietnamese,” McIntyre says. “I felt, despite bureaucratic bungling, I had a chance to help the people. To me, the war was about loving the country, loving the people and believing that our heart was in the right place. I wanted to do a story about that.”
But finding a way in proved difficult. His requests to film in Saigon were repeatedly denied, as the material was branded “too touchy a subject.” After being approached in early 2006 by Dr. Marvin Wayne, a doctor in the last evacuation hospital in Vietnam, McIntyre found his “in.” Rather than taking a traditional anti-Viet Cong stance, McIntyre decided to tell his story from inside the hospital to avoid typical American biases, painting the enemy instead as the Camir Rouge.
“Part of this story was very strategic,” McIntyre says. “I needed permission from the North Vietnamese. And the story is about a hospital, so the Viet Cong are not the bad guys– they’re just out there.”
The Vietnamese Ministry of Culture told McIntyre that it had been approached hundred of times for filming rights, turning down Mel Gibson and Oliver Stone. One simple question, “Will you read my script?”, catapulted McIntyre one step closer to realizing his dream.
Two days later, McIntyre was sitting at a 200-foot long table in Vietnam, in the very room where Ho Chi Minh planned the war. In his meeting with six Vietnamese officials, including the Minister of Culture and a prominent Vietnamese director (the “Martin Scorsese of Vietnam”), McIntyre discovered that he had fought against two of the men in a battle at Da Nang.
“Forty years ago, we were 20 feet apart shooting at each other. It was very emotional. We all just started crying spontaneously,” McIntyre says. “I think they got a sense of how much I honored the Vietnamese and their sacrifices. They told me, ‘We’ll do what we can, but don’t get your hopes up.’”
McIntyre was granted permission to shoot the entire movie without subjection to conventional film censorship laws, giving him free reign to construct the village in the movie entirely from scratch. Authenticity also played a role in the decision of filming locations, which were chosen by retracing the steps of those who had actually lived the story.
“The people were incredibly gracious everywhere we went,” McIntyre says. “And I was only arrested once. I [inadvertently] visited a North Vietnamese base on a scouting mission, which led to my arrest. I went through a hot box interrogation and my hotel manager helped negotiate my confession.”
Lead actress Amy Acker had a similar eye-opening experience for the two and half weeks that she was there. “We got to shoot scenes in very poor areas, where they had never seen any Americans. It really makes you grateful for what you have, and makes you realize that you have much more than you need,” Acker said.
McIntyre considers this film the “crowning achievement” of his movie-making career. “If I never make another movie, I’ll be happy,” he said. “Whatever happens to this film, I’m proud to have made it and been involved in it.”