Yes, me too. Bon had apparently infected me with his morality, a disease likely to be fatal. I offered him a cigarette after Claude gave up attempting to persuade us and went inside, and together we stood there smoking, ignoring the touts tugging at our shirts but unable to ignore the passing troops of tourists who bumped and shoved us. Gawd, someone behind me said, didja see what she did with that Ping-Pong ball, mate? Ping-Pong ching-chong, someone else said. Long schlong duk dong. Bloody hell, I think the bitch pinched my wallet. Bon threw his cigarette away and said, Let’s get out of here before I kill somebody. I shrugged. Where to? He pointed over my shoulder, and when I turned I saw the movie poster that had caught his eye.
We watched The Hamlet in a movie theater full of locals who had not yet learned that cinema was a hallowed art form, that one did not, during the performance, blow one’s nose without a tissue; bring one’s own snack, beverage, or picnic; beat one’s child or, conversely, sing a crying baby a lullaby; call out affectionately to friends several rows away; discuss past, present, and future plot points with one’s seatmate; or sprawl so widely in one’s seat that one’s thigh rested against a neighbor’s for the entire duration. But who was to say they were wrong? How else could one tell whether a movie was faring well or badly if the audience did not respond to it? The audience seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly, given the cheering and clapping, and God help me if I did not also find myself caught up in the story and the sheer spectacle. The scene the audience reacted to most strongly was the climactic battle, during which my own jet-lagged heart also beat faster. Perhaps it was the menacing, Beethoven-like score with its infernal repetitition of notes saturated in the devil’s deep pitch, dum-dum-DA-dum-DA-dum-DA-DA-DAAAA; perhaps it was the hissing helicopter blades, reduced to slow-motion sound; perhaps it was the crosscutting between the gazes of Bellamy and Shamus, riding their airborne steeds, with the gazes of the Viet Cong girls peering through the crosshairs of their antiaircraft cannons; perhaps it was the bombs bursting in air; perhaps it was the sight of the Viet Cong savages being given a bloodbath, the only kind of bath they were likely to take; perhaps it was all these things that made me wish for a gun in my hand so I, too, could participate in the Old Testament slaughter of the Viet Cong who looked, if not exactly like me, fairly close to me. They certainly looked exactly like my fellow spectators, who whooped and laughed as a variety of American-made weaponry vaporized, pulverized, lacerated, and splattered their not-so-distant neighbors. I twisted in my seat, fully awoken from my torpor. I wanted to close my eyes but could not, unable to do more than blink a few times rapidly since the preceding scene, the only one where the audience had fallen completely quiet.
This was also the only scene I had not seen filmed. The Auteur used no music, the agony unreeling with only Mai’s screams and protests, underscored by the VC quartet’s laughing, cursing, and jeering. The lack of music only made more audible the audience’s sudden silence, and mothers who had not bothered to turn away their children’s faces from the gutting, shooting, hacking, and decapitation now clapped their hands over the eyes of their babes. Long shots from the cave’s darkened corners depicted a human octopus writhing at the cave’s center, the naked Mai struggling under the backs and limbs of her half-naked rapists. While we saw glimpses of her naked body, most of it was obscured by the strategically placed legs, arms, and buttocks of the VC, with the flesh tones, the scarlet blood, and their tattered black-and-brown clothing rendered in a painterly Renaissance shading that recalled for me faint memories of an art history class. Alternating with these long shots were extreme close-ups of Mai’s battered face with its howling mouth and bloody nose, one eye so swollen it had closed completely. The most extended shot of the movie was devoted to this face filling the entire screen, her open eye wheeling in its socket, blood sputtering on her lips as she screamed
Mamamamamamamamamamamamamamamama!
I cringed, and when finally the movie cut to the reverse shot and we saw these red-skinned demons as seen from Mai’s eye, faces flushed from home-brewed rice wine, bared teeth crusty with lichen, squinty eyes squeezed shut in ecstasy, the only possible feeling burning in one’s gut was the desire for their utter extinction. This was what the Auteur provided next, in the gruesome finale of hand-to-hand combat, which could also double as a medical school training film in anatomical dissection.
By the movie’s last shot, of innocent Danny Boy sitting in the open doorway of a Huey helicopter ascending slowly into the clear blue heavens, weeping as he gazed over his war-ravaged homeland, destined for a country where women’s breasts produced not just milk but milkshakes — or so the GIs told him — I had to admit to the Auteur’s talent, the way one might admire the technical genius of a master gunsmith. He had hammered into existence a thing of beauty and horror, exhilirating for some and deadly for others, a creation whose purpose was destruction. As the credits began rolling, I felt touched by shame for having contributed to this dark work, but also pride in the contributions of my extras. Faced with ungraceful roles, they had comported themselves with as much grace as possible. There were the four veterans who played VC RAPIST #1, VC RAPIST #2, VC RAPIST #3, and VC RAPIST #4, as well as the others who had made their screen debuts as DESPERATE VILLAGER, DEAD GIRL, LAME BOY, CORRUPT OFFICER, PRETTY NURSE, BLIND BEGGAR, SAD REFUGEE, ANGRY CLERK, WEEPING WIDOW, IDEALISTIC STUDENT, GENTLE WHORE, and CRAZY GUY IN WHOREHOUSE. But I did not take pride in just my own. There were also all those colleagues who dedicated themselves behind the scenes, like Harry. This artist was sure to score an Oscar nomination for his fanatically detailed sets, his valuable work unmarred even by the minor incident involving his hiring of a local fixer to furnish actual corpses from a nearby graveyard for the finale. To the gendarmes who came to arrest him, he said, with genuine contriteness, I didn’t think it was illegal, officers. All was reconciled with the speedy return of the corpses to their graves and a substantial donation by the Auteur to the policemen’s benevolent association, otherwise known as the local brothel. I grimaced at seeing Violet’s name as assistant producer, but conceded that she had a right to come before me in the hierarchy of credits. I recalled fondly the unending sustenance supplied by the artisans of craft services, the dedicated care of the first aid team, and the efficient daily transportation provided by the drivers, although, to be frank, my services were more specialized than any of those. I do admit that perhaps my bicultural, bilingual skills were not as unique as those of the trainer who taught various tricks and commands to the adorable mutt playing the adopted native pet of the Green Berets, credited as SMITTY THE DOG, or the exotic animal handler who flew in on a DC-3 charter with a surly Bengal tiger in a cage — LILY — and who ensured the docility of the elephants, ABBOTT and COSTELLO. But while I admired the cheerful, prompt work of the laundresses — DELIA, MARYBELLE, CORAZON, and so on — did they merit appearing before me? The names of the laundresses continued their upward scroll, and it was only with the acknowledgments of the mayor, the councilmen, the head of the tourist bureau, the Philippine armed forces, and First Lady Imelda Marcos and President Ferdinand Marcos that I realized my name was never coming at all.