Spanning the years 1936 to 1944, Come See The Paradise is a cross-cultural love story played out against the turmoil engendered by the US government's decision, in the wake of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour, to intern tens of thousands of Japanese Americans in hastily constructed camps in the California desert. Dennis Quaid plays the brash, young former New York union organiser who drifts into Los Angeles and promptly meets, falls in love with and marries a young Japanese girl (Tamlyn Tomita). The pair's heady union, initially fragmented by its cultural diversity, is dealt a crushing blow when the girl and her family are rounded up and interned in the camp. Astutely written and directed by Alan Parker and impeccably period designed by Geoffrey Kirkland, the film's abject poignancy finds its focal point in the tonal coherence of a love story for the ages. It's the stuff epic melodrama is made of and the climactic reunion is guaranteed to leave few in the audience dry-eyed. The film was in competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.
