Little Bird
Rating: 5/5
By: Nathaniel Simpson
Like with The Stand, Oanh-Nhi Nguyen's second film that was screened at the HollyShorts Film Festival, titled Little Bird, showcases the Southeast Asian community in a world where we need more representation for this community in the world of film and television. While The Stand showcased a young girl in modern times who is trying to help her mother with her food stand, Little Bird heartbreakingly shows the cruel and unlivable conditions of Vietnamese refugees and how they are being evicted with nowhere else to go. Nguyen truly does a fantastic job of painting this picture of what these refugees had to go through, as well as the emotional turmoil the main character, Linh Tran (Chantal Thuy) goes through in the process of being forced to evict them.
This film is inspired by the work that Chinese-American housing organizer, Debbie Wei, did to help refugees and the unfavorable conditions of the housing units they had access to. The movie perfectly shows what these people went through during the '80s, and how they were evicted and received such horrible treatment. From the set design to the screenplay from Nguyen and Ysabeux Ng, this picture really highlights a point in history for this community where they felt like there was nowhere safe for them to be, where they didn't have to worry about being evicted or kicked out unjustly.
Once again, Nguyen is able to capture all of these emotions from different characters and really make the viewer care for these characters in such a short timespan. This movie is only 14 minutes long, and she is able to set up a conflict, characters that the viewers sympathize for, a resolution, as well as tying it into the real history of these housing arrangements. A lot of short filmmakers aren't able to do all of this in such a short runtime, yet she does it seemingly effortlessly.
The characters and the performances really draw you into the film, and they are the heart of the picture. We witness Linh's character evolving over the course of the film, making her reflect on where she was at the start of the movie and how she doesn't want to be in that role anymore. At the same time, the setting really plays its own character here, representing a sort of haven for these refugees to call home that also offers such hellish conditions to live. There is a lot to unpack after watching this film, and I think Nguyen allows the viewers to really consider what they are watching and how it has affected so many people over the years.
Wei, who played a major part in helping these refugee communities in fighting for better housing and repairs, told Nguyen after watching her film that she "captured so much of the time period and the conditions in Admiral Court... [she] captured the spirt of the kids at the time too... thank you so much for keeping this history alive." The fact that this admirable woman that this movie is inspired off of has said these things to the director speaks volumes of how great this film is, and it is one that I think everyone needs to see at least once.
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