TThe accents in the voice-overs say it all. We hear Southern English, Australian, American and Hebridean. They have one thing in common: these are the adult voices of the orphans who were flown out of South Vietnam as part of “Operation Babylift” at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. They were placed in families of different cultures around the world and grew up without any experience of the country they had left behind.
One of them was Barton C. Williams, who grew up in Adelaide’s sun-and-surf tradition. Living in a predominantly white country, he was subjected to racial abuse – he sings an entire song full of insults – but he can’t cook Vietnamese or South Asian food. In 2021, his work as an actor took him to the set of Silent Roar, a film about a grieving surfer, on the Isle of Lewis. There he met Andy Yearley, “the best music teacher on the island” and part of the same Vietnamese diaspora.
Precious Cargo is partly the product of their encounter, a monologue delivered by Williams about identity, belonging and the feeling of having to ride the waves of history. It is fascinating, similar to Who Do You Think You Are?, which director Laura Cameron-Lewis stages for sruth-mara using Robbie Thomson’s cardboard boxes onto which she projects meaningful images of children, war and the sea.
At the same time, it feels like they’ve missed something. Meeting Yearley is one anecdote among many in Williams’ autobiographical story, and although his music is featured on the soundtrack, he is not an equal partner in the collaboration. We learn of their different experiences on opposite sides of the world – as well as those of several other orphans – but it would have been much more interesting to see them meet face-to-face.
