The title of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Betrayal refers to the Americans who let down the Laotian soldiers who helped fight their secret war in the ’70s. It also refers to a Laotian fighter who turns his back on his family after being MIA for 15 years. And it refers to that soldier’s betrayal of his country, which he helped destroy.
Shot over 23 years, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) tells the story
of Thavisouk Phrasavath (Thavi, for short), a Laotian refugee who left
his homeland when he was 13, eventually settling in Brooklyn. In the
opening scenes, Thavi (who co-directs, narrates and sits in front of
the camera) recounts a typical childhood stroll past wounded soldiers
in war-torn Laos: “I thought killing and dying was a normal thing,” he
says.
Newsreel footage unspools as details are paraded across the screen:
“During the Vietnam war, the neutral kingdom of Laos became a base for
an illegal secret air war in Southeast Asia.” “The CIA financed and
armed the royal Laos government and created its own secret guerilla
army.” When the Americans retreated from Laos, the U.S.-backed regime
fell, and Laotian military men were sent to re-education camps.
That’s where Thavi’s tale turns personal. His dad was one of those
U.S.-backed soldiers. When the CIA left the country after bombing the
hell out of it, they neither acknowledged nor helped the left-behind
combatants. Thavi’s dad was carted away in 1975, leaving his mom and
nine siblings alone.
Neighbors wanted nothing to do with them, and they feared for their
lives. “We became the enemy,” recalls Thavi’s mom. Thavi escaped one
night and lived on the streets of Bangkok for two years, waiting for
the rest of his family to join him.
Eventually, his mom made it out of Laos with all but two of her
kids, and they applied for political asylum in the U.S. They’re
relocated to N.Y.C. and tossed into a cramped apartment with no money
and no food, except for a few grains of rice (but no pot to cook them
in).
The movie includes footage of Thavi from 1985 with long hair —
smoking, drinking and hanging out with friends. But as this engaging
film makes clear, he’s no street thug. He’s a smart, articulate young
man who watches over his family. He learns English. And he begins to
piece together his family’s, and his country’s, torn past.
The Betrayal documents Thavi’s coming to terms with the
betrayals: by the United States (“Life in America was hell on Earth,”
his mom says), his dad (turns out he didn’t die in that re-education
camp) and his own country. Despite all this, there’s reconciliation at
the end — with family, with nation and with Thavi’s role within
them. There’s peace of sorts, for the land and the man who’s
experienced much turmoil over the past 40 years.
This article appears in Apr 22-28, 2009.