ISN’T THIS THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD?

Film shows that to move forward takes much sacrifice

The Reelworld Film Festival could not have chosen a better opening film to kick off its 20th anniversary than The Greatest Country in the World from director Ky Nam Le Duc. Reelworld’s founder Tonya Williams whose mission two decades ago was to give the BIPOC and other minority communities a voice and platform in the film and media industry has picked up steam during this pandemic. This film festival serves as a reminder that our relations with minority groups are still forever strained and that the support needs to continue to fight systemic racism. This is why Ky Nam Le Duc’s film The Greatest Country in the World fits that mission of Reelworld. This heartbreaking yet charming story shows that strain in the relationships that we have with one another tested best amongst a cold and wintery backdrop.

The film mainly centers on an older Vietnamese man named Hiên, played Nguyen Thah Tri, who is trying to move back to his country from Quebec. As he is trying to sell his property and his store, the government is facing a major change by electing a far-right government waiting to close its borders. This does not bode well for a refugee like Hiên who is advised to sell his property and other non-status immigrants who are trying to flee their own country.

Hiên’s daughter Phuong, played by Alice Tran, is going back to Vietnam to do some work but sends her francophone ex-husband Alex, played by Michaël Goun to go see him. Unfortunately, things don’t go so smoothly because he is left with an abandoned child by the name of Junior, played by Stanley Junior Jean-Baptiste. His Haitian mother Roseline, played by Schelby Jean-Baptiste, has fled the country after asking her employer Alex to take care of his son for a couple of days so she can see her mother before she passes away and before the borders close. After a while, Alex figures out that Roseline is not coming back and is left to take care of Junior and that Hiên is the only person who can help with this predicament.

There are many underlying messages that The Greatest Country in the World offers the audience. Whether it is our relationships with others, our parents, our children, or those of another race we are always trying to do our best for others. Sometimes we do have to migrate to other places to find better opportunities such as Hiên in the film who is a Vietnamese refugee migrating to Quebec to get away from the remnants of the Vietnam war.

The sacrifices that one has to make to give themselves and their future a better opportunity is part of the equation. These are very difficult decisions to make as seen throughout all the characters in the film who have all left something important behind to move forward. That transition of migrating from place to place is a journey of struggle and difficulty. That is what is important for director Ky Nam Le Duc is to focus on what exists between place to place as documented in The Greatest Country in the World. This period of existence is the one that allows us to grow to be confident in our future and essentially our past in which many of us can’t get away from.