Debut: ‘Boat People’
As an artistic medium, animation is often disregarded and deemed “childish.” Despite the critical success of more adult-oriented animation — works meant for an audience not solely made of children — in film and television for decades, it is still difficult to convince audiences to watch animated works as the initial presumption is often that the final product is for a younger audience. Thao Lam and Kjell Boersma’s short film, Boat People (2023), exists as a compelling counter to this belief, delivering a complex message about the refugees balanced with a simple yet effective animation style.
Boat People, based on Lam’s 2020 book of the same name, follows Lam’s parents as they escape a war-torn Vietnam during the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Escaping from their village, Lam’s parents take her on a long journey to get to their new life. Despite the idea of escape being at the core of the short film, Lam and Boersma spend very little time focusing on the physical flight from Vietnam, focusing more on the emotional journey and the difficulty of escaping the tragedies of war.
Ants play a large factor in the short film as well, drawing constant parallels to Lam’s family as they flee Vietnam and try to stay alive. The opening of the film depicts Lam’s mother rescuing ants who have fallen into a bowl of sugar water, set to Lam’s narration, she describes this “invasion” of ants as one of survival, her mother telling Lam that the ants were simply scavenging for food.
This moment immediately forces the viewer to question their understanding of what they deem to be invasive. Ants, while commonly seen as invasive pests, are simply trying to survive and keep their colony safe and alive. Similarly, so too do refugees and immigrants who leave their homes to try and find safety for themselves and their loved ones in a new land. Yet these people are often labeled as “invasive” and blamed for bringing disease and crime to the countries they choose to flee to. With this opening scene drawing the parallel between the two groups, the viewer is forced to question what authority they themselves have to judge a group and label them “invasive.”
The parallel between ants and refugees is drawn throughout almost the entirety of the 10-minute film. The narrator focuses on what ants do to survive, from sacrificing themselves for the good of others to moving forward so that others in their colony may benefit. While Lam talks about the nature of ants, the animation depicts her parents as they travel by boat out of Vietnam, eventually ending up in a refugee camp.
Comparing those fleeing their war-torn country to insects may seem a touch demeaning, but it is a successful attempt at showing the viewer how the refugees themselves feel. They have been chased out of their place of living and forced to travel and scavenge for shelter. In whatever place they settle, there is still animosity and aggression, no matter where they go. However, this comparison is not simply one rooted in tragedy, for Lam shows the love and hope her parents had for her and the love and hope she and her sibling carry with them, highlighting the strength and resilience that has been instilled in them by their parents, despite the emotional burden they still carry.
This emotional burden and the impact of fleeing one's home are also touched on in the short film. Early in the film, Lam’s grandmother reunites them by boat with her son (Lam’s father) before staying behind, to presumably not slow them down. Lam’s father is devastated by this and remains so through the rest of the film, showing the difficulty of fully escaping the war. While Lam’s family physically escaped, her parents remained mentally trapped by the exhausting and demanding journey, her father was beset with guilt and sorrow over leaving his mother behind and Lam’s mother was left exhausted from traveling while very pregnant.
The animation style is, as previously mentioned, deceptively simple. The animation replicates Lam’s style of illustration seen in her books, collages. This art style usually entails cutting and layering of paper, of various colors and textures, to create distinctly unique visuals. The animation style copies this with a lack of detail and simple background and foreground visuals to paint the environment.
What makes this style of animation so compelling is the way it lacks color. For most of the film, the color palette is fairly saturated with heavy grays and blacks. Lam’s family is the only family in color while other refugees are simply shaded a dark grey with a lack of strong defining features. While this helps Lam and her family stand out from the crowd, it also suggests the scope and scale of the refugee crisis. Hundreds upon hundreds of faceless people, teeming and surging forward from Vietnam to a small boat to a refugee camp, all desperate, all scared, all with stories to tell that may never be heard.
Boat People is a moving story with an engaging visual style. The story of refugees is a tragic one, and a story that unfortunately always feels timely. However Lam and Boersma’s film reminds viewers of the importance of remembering shared humanity and the power and understanding that can provide.
