When they tell you “resistance is futile”: Remember the Cu Chi Tunnels

[During the US war on Vietnam, the collective determination and perseverance of the Vietnamese was matched by an extraordinary resourcefulness against the US occupation/war in the South.  One of the best examples of the creative response the liberation struggle made to US aggression, was the creation of a vast tunnel network underground–the most famous one (of many) was known as the Cu Chi Tunnels, as told in this documentary.  This is more than a historic memory, as one cannot imagine how the highly-touted UAV/drones of contemporary counter-insurgency warfare would prevail against such tunnels and other resourceful forms of popular resistance and revolution in present times.  — Frontlines ed.]

THE CU CHI TUNNELS (with English subtitles)
[https://youtu.be/19ejFuEyHyk]

This film was the first to be shot in Vietnam since the war ended. Director Mickey Grant started shooting it in 1986 on 16mm film and it premiered on 35mm film at a Saigon theater in 1990 with all the cast of former Viet Cong present and ended with a standing ovation that lasted over 30 minutes.

During the war in Vietnam, thousands of people in the Vietnamese province of Cu Chi lived in an elaborate system of underground tunnels. Originally built in the time of the French, the tunnels were enlarged during the American presence. When the Americans began bombing the villages of Cu Chi, the survivors went underground where they remained for the duration of the war. The secret tunnels, which joined village to village and often passes beneath American bases, were not only fortifications for Viet Cong guerillas, but were also the center of community life. Hidden beneath the destroyed villages were schools and public spaces were hospitals where children were born and surgery was performed on casualties of war: underground were schools and public spaces where couples were married and private places where lovers met. There were even theaters where performers entertained with song and dance and traditional stories.

THE CU CHI TUNNELS, a Mickey Grant film, is the story of life underground told by the people who lived the experience. It is a story told by a surgeon, an artist, and actress, an engineer, and the few survivors of the guerilla band who left the tunnels each night to fight against an enemy of vastly superior strength. Attached to the guerilla bands were Viet Cong documentary cameramen and camerawomen whose footage of the war from the Vietnamese point of view and of love, life and death in the tunnels has survived and is used in the film. This extremely rare footage povides a fascinating kind of echo; we see and hear an actress perform in the wartime tunnels and then hear her describe the experience nearly thirty years later.

Director Mickey Grant can be reached at 214-282-2671.  You may obtain the DVD by contacting Mickey Grant at Mickeyfilm@aol.com.

Mickey Grant Productions
Producer, Director, Cameraman: Mickey Grant
Executive Producer: Stan Cottrell