cover image Vietnam

Vietnam

Mitch Epstein. W. W. Norton & Company, $35 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-393-04027-2

Epstein's remarkable photo-essay, based on six trips to Vietnam between 1992 and 1995, reveals a land that few tourists or armchair travelers will ever glimpse. These impromptu yet powerful pictures display his admiration for the Vietnamese people's energy, depth, resourcefulness and dignity in the face of repression and stark poverty. He portrays a claustrophobic society, largely shut off from the world for the last 30 years, now becoming increasingly capitalistic under a dictatorial communist regime while still recovering from the devastation of war. Photos of crumbling houses, an itinerant veteran beggar, imported urinals, graffiti, a roasted dog's head, belie the official image of a communist idyll. Epstein, a cinematographer and production designer for Salaam Bombay! and Mississippi Masala, includes a bittersweet personal essay that begins only on page 152, following the color photography--an unusual format device that adds to the book's visceral impact. (Nov.)