Gran Torino 'And Betrayal'

Our memory shape our opinions and how we are going to remember certain moments of our lives. It creates our history. Walt Kowalski, the main character of Gran Torino, is an old veteran who carry his horrible experiences from the Korean War in his memory and it shape his life in Detroit, in his neighborhood with Asian minorities. During the movie, we can watch scenes where Walt talks about the war, but he never actually says what exactly he did. The only information we get, are at the end of the movie, when he locked Thao in the basement and told him how many men he killed. However, Walt never talk more about it and we can observe how he is stuck in his memories and do not want to deal with it. What we know is that he did something he is not satisfy with, but this fact we do not know. The hidden pieces of Walt’s war memories show how this movie represents incomplete comprehension of the history. Even though the movie Gran Torino is trying to say …show more content…
Gran Torino is as American movie that shows the American perspective on Hmong minority. It is a subjective view on their representation. On the other hand, movie The Betrayal shows the Laotians perspective, but again it is their subjective perception of the U.S. We cannot compare American movies with movies, such as The Betrayal, because each nation is building their history on different memories. Laotian thought about the U.S. as a country where they will find a better life. However, when they came here they were not recognize. They were foreign and the did not find the help they expected. Laotian memories are based on the betrayal. They do not perceive the U.S. as a heroic country, or at least not that much as American do. No one know about their stories and history is forgetting them. To remember something, we have to forget something else. American movies forgot the memories of the Laotian, or Hmong, so they can remember their heroic