Dust Of Life

It comes as no surprise that Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb's film -- based on the memoirs of Duyen Ahn, a survivor of the "reeducation" process to which Amerasian Vietnamese children were subjected -- is both harrowing and heartfelt. What is surprising is the mid-film shift from brutal realism to a conventional adventure formula: Imagine Huckleberry Finn meets PAPILLON and weep. "Dust of life" is a derogatory term used by the Vietnamese to refer to the some 40,000 children of American GIs and Vietnamese women who were left behind after the 1975 fall of Saigon. Thirteen-year-old Son (Daniel Guyant), like many other Amerasians abandoned by their fa...