Heaven & Earth

Director Oliver Stone's third Vietnam War film is based on the life of Le Ly Hayslip (born 1949) who also has a cameo appearance in it. Le Ly is a girl growing up in a Vietnamese village. Her life changes when communist insurgents show up in the village to first fight the forces of France and then the United States. The film follows her through a life of suffering and hardship during and after the Vietnam war. Eventually, she marries a U.S. marine and moves to the US with him. The woman's relationships with men suggests a symbolic analogy of a female "Vietnam" and the male "United States." This is the last installment of Oliver Stone's Vietnam Trilogy, which includes Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989).