I think that in "Blue Bayou," Antonio is brought to the United States, but obviously he didn't have a say in that and it is very introspective and poses those questions about what it means to be an American. To me, sometimes immigrants, the consciously chose to go to that country and live there and call it home as opposed to just being born somewhere.
How did you go about parsing this question, this kind of complicated theme, of what home is and what it means to, especially adoptees?Ĭhon: I mean, I think it is very complicated who gets to claim who is from what country and is their identity.
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So Justin, one of the first lines of dialogue in the movie is Antonio is asked, "Where are you from?" Which is a very familiar question to many Asian Americans or Asian diaspora people, but "Blue Bayou" makes this question a little more complicated, because of the nature of Antonio's adoptee background. I just started to Google and realized then that this was actually a global issue. When I finished Justin's script, and I think the last page, it did something that I hope maybe people will do watch the film, I grabbed my phone and I couldn't help myself but wanting to learn more. In one way, this is about children that have actually legally been adopted into countries and for me to then realize that the reality is that if not the right paperwork were filed, suddenly there is a loophole where their own home countries, their own government can't protect them and instead can use it by deporting them and sending them away, not only from their homes, but from their families and sometimes even their children. But almost aside from the politics, I mean, this particular situation that Antonio is faced by in this film, to me, was something I had no clue about. Who gets to decide what that is? Is it just paperwork and legalities or is it something that you can choose? I don't think there's a clear-cut sort of answer to that question," he continued.Īlicia Vikander: Well, I mean, immigration politics I think is ever-present not only in America, but other parts of the world. "I think it is very complicated who gets to claim who is from what country and is their identity," Chon told me in an interview with him and co-star Alicia Vikander ahead of the release of "Blue Bayou." The film "poses those questions about what it means to be an American. But a tussle with local law enforcement leads him to be detained by ICE and faced with deportation back to a country he's never known and which never wanted him. Chon writes, directs, and dons full-body and neck tattoos to star in "Blue Bayou" as Antonio LeBlanc, a New Orleans tattoo artist who was adopted by white parents as a young child. Now, his most recent directorial effort "Blue Bayou" tackles the daunting topic of the deportation of Asian adoptees. Purple," which probed the generational tensions (and traumas) between Korean first and second-generation immigrants.
It wasn't long until Chon had firmly established himself as one of the exciting Asian-American indie filmmakers to watch, following up with the 2019 family drama "Ms. Justin Chon has come a long way since he wowed Sundance audiences with his 2017 film "Gook." The writer and director of "Blue Bayou" is many years removed from being "that funny Asian guy" from "Twilight" who directed and starred in the provocative black-and-white drama about two Korean-American brothers on the first day of the 1992 L.A.