Some photographs define an era.‘Saigon Execution’, where a Viet Cong commander is about to be shot in the head, is undeniably one of them. This film looks at the enduring legacy, along with ongoing grief and suffering created by that one photograph.
In 1968, during the Vietnam war, a commander of the Viet Cong forces had been captured, beaten up but was refusing to talk. In full view of everyone, press included, the Chief of Police shot him in the head. Eddie Adams took the iconic photograph in the split second before the trigger was pulled. Kim Nguyen’s film begins at that moment, and peels back the layers of facts, hidden memories and mysteries all emanating from that one point in time.
Interestingly there is also film footage taken at the exact same time which, horrific though it is, and graphic in its depiction of death, does not have the same impact. It has not resonated down the years in the way that one single still image has. Perhaps it stems from the way that film is more transitory, whereas a photograph burns itself into our memory, making it much harder to forget. Vietnam, on the surface at least, has recovered and moved on from war, but buried memories are not far from the surface.
The victim’s children are still traumatised by the killing, reminders of which will never disappear. The film also raises wider questions. Would newspapers be so eager to publish such a photograph today? For example, no newspaper ever published images of the aftermath of high school shootings. Today, a popular myth is that the photo’s publication hastened the end of the Vietnam War, but that isn’t true.
It was actually taken and published at the start of the conflict, as the US were joining the war, which then continued for another seven years. Saigon Story is a remarkable film about a remarkable photograph. Part mystery, part history, the film uncovers many things still left unresolved about a war that finished around 50 years ago.
