This won the audience award at the 1999 Cleveland Int'l Film Festival and was brought back for the Director's Spotlight on Freida Lee Mock in 2006. Like her other works, it's a quality product taking a deep look at a time/event that resonates strongly in the American psyche.
The look back in time to the prisons that held our Viet Nam era POWs is done effectively, with voices of the POWs themselves over pictures of the "Hanoi Hilton" and other 1960's vintage Hanoi. Mock presents a powerful portrait of the prisoners, the brutality, the political wills of the times.
It's not Mock's role to say that history repeats itself, for we see the same issues in 2006 in the POW issue that we see portrayed in her film. Political pawns for both sides, expendable as individuals, tools of a national leadership's will, individuals struggling to survive; it has not changed.
This is an excellent companion piece to another of Mock's works, "Maya Lin: A Strong, Clear Vision" chronicles this architect's part in creating the Viet Nam War Memorial.