Regret to Inform
a documentary film by Barbara Sonneborn

Regret to Inform is an outstanding documentary film that follows Barbara Sonneborn’s pilgrimage to the area in Vietnam where her GI husband, Jeff, had been killed 30 years earlier. Sonneborn simply wanted to learn the circumstances surrounding her husband's death – he died in a "free fire zone," an area in which soldiers were ordered to shoot at anything that moves – but discovers much more.

"Making this film has been Jeff's gift to me," Sonneborn reflects. "It has expanded my understanding of sorrow and suffering, of love and joy. I want people to see war differently than they've seen it before. I want them to look war in the face, to ask themselves, `Am I going to allow this to happen ever again?' I want people to so deeply realize the humanity of other human beings that they won't be able to kill them."

Sonneborn accomplishes her goal by telling the story through American and Vietnamese voices and images. The film uses documentary footage, interviews with war widows, and readings from letters written by soldiers to their loved ones, to reveal the nature of the atrocities that are an everyday part of war for any soldier in combat. A telling sequence near the end of the film cuts between the names on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, to a placard with the names of the Vietnamese war dead.

It also is one of the only Vietnam War films that interviews a broad range of American widows, including Black, white, Native American, and other widows of color. As a result, the American voices that come through are powerful and authentic.

Regret to Inform is not to be missed. The film is intelligent and passionate without being polemical. It will be shown as a part of Point of View (POV) series aired on many public broadcasting stations. POV has produced a viewers guide which will soon be available on-line and in print.

For more information about the guide or the film, visit the POV web site.

Regret to Inform by Barbara Sonneborn, with Janet Cole, Lucy Massie Phenix and Ken Schneider, 86 minutes. Airing on PBS stations January 24, 2000, at 10 p.m. (Times may vary between cities, so check your local listings.)

Past resources of the month are listed in the resource section of the Y&M website.

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