Venice Film Festival: A searing look at the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War has appeared on screen countless times, but the 83rd Venice Film Festival is presenting it through a different chain of perspectives: a Japanese director filming the experience of an African American soldier sent to the front.

That is the central premise of “Mr. Nelson, did you kill people” by Shinya Tsukamoto, which premiered in the festival’s official competition. The title character is a real Vietnam veteran who, now middle-aged, visits a psychologist, played by Geoffrey Rush, seeking relief from chronic post-traumatic stress.

The sessions eventually become a torrent of confession. Extended flashbacks take Nelson into the jungles of Vietnam, where he and his fellow soldiers committed the horrific crimes that now weigh on his conscience. The images are exceptionally harsh, and the Japan-U.S.-Vietnam co-production takes an unusually bold approach to the subject.

The film’s final section focuses on Nelson’s mental state and later actions. It is more schematic and talkative, the review says, but that does not diminish the film’s historical importance or authenticity.

The festival also screened Cédric Kahn’s “A Place to Heal,” about a residential facility for young people with psychiatric problems and delinquent behavior. The film follows its young protagonists closely, without beautifying their circumstances, while maintaining a humanitarian spirit. Paul Schrader’s “The Basics of Philosophy,” set at an American university, takes a more old-fashioned approach as a philosophy professor confronts secrets that threaten his carefully ordered life, amid concerns about cancel culture and a dose of Baruch Spinoza.