Noble – Stephen Bradley

Noble is the true story of Christina Noble, an Irish woman who at some point of her life decides to realize a lifelong dream: going to Vietnam in order to build a future for street children. It all begins when Christina is a child, born in 1940s in a very poor family, and starts helping economically her parents by performing as a baby-singer in a bar in Dublin.

When her mother dies, Christina is separated from her brothers and father and brought to an orphanage where she will live until she is 16.

After a short reappearance of her father in her life, Christina is alone again but still determined. She arranges a sort of campsite as her home in a park and finds a job in a ironing shop. There she meets Joan, a girl who will be not only her best friend but also her lifeline in the darkest moments.

The film is a succession of flashbacks bringing to light the real reason why Christina left to Vietnam: one night worn out after having worked in the bar of her violent Italian husband, she sees on the TV images of the Vietnam war. Those frightened children escaping leave their mark so deeply in her soul that Christina can’t do anything but desiring with all her heart to leave with the aim of helping them.

In 1989 Christina takes a one way flight to Vietnam. There, slowly and building a strong friendship net, is able to create what she had desired for all those years back: a shelter for all those orphans.

“I didn’t know why I had a dream about your country, a country I’d never been to. Today I had my answer.”

Despite a series of terrible events, Noble is not a sad film. Quite the contrary, it’s so focused on the strength and the fiery character of Christina that you don’t have time to get sad, not even when you realize that it is a true story. I have watched this film without high expectations, actually it had been dropped off on my computer for quite a long time and I didn’t know if I had to give it a chance or not. It was even the second choice of a Saturday night at home and I was happy to be proved wrong.

I tried the whole time to identify myself with her and her feelings. Vietnam called Christina and she went, she left without knowing what she was going to find, what she would do and if she would succeed. She completely gave herself a challenge in an environment which wasn’t familiar at all, full of obstacles and, if you like, dangers..

This is not just exiting the “comfort zone”, is exiting with style.

{Cover image from IMDB}