Overview

Filmed on location in Vietnam’s Indochina Sea, this remarkable 13-minute video depicts a number of young men struggling to propel cyclos across the rock-strewn, sandy, ocean bottom. Working in teams, they pull, push, and pedal the passengerless vehicles; and periodically they must rush up to the surface for air or risk drowning. The water grows deeper; the boulders get larger; the trip to the surface takes longer; and the task is increasingly arduous. Finally, the drivers abandon their cyclos, and swim together toward an underwater “city” composed of tents made from white netting strung between boulders, a metaphorical memorial for the many Vietnamese boat people drowned in the aftermath of the war.