So in the past weeks, I’ve attended and watched a lot of Vietnamese movies due to the close-by San Jose Cinequest Film Festival as well as my beloved San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival. Here are the movies I watched and my short (and mostly unprofessionally written) reviews of them.
White Silk Dress
Vietnam’s most-expensive movie to date tells the tragic story of a family torn by war and poverty, but never losing their faith in the Vietnamese culture and the symbol of the white Vietnamese dress. The movie felt like a Vietnamese version of ‘Gone with the Wind’ with its themes of turmoil, war, love and patriotism. Albeit being a bit slow at the beginning, the movie is worth the watch, as long as you can ignore the very-out-of-place propagandistic inserts of anti-capitalism in the end. In particular, the movie flows very beautifully and very well, but ended in some very roughly-cut scenes of the ‘American War’ and it seems as if the director was forced to put those scenes in after the movie’s production completed, but failed to pass through the censors.
Bolinao 52
This also is a very heart-wrenching and disturbing documentary about one particular boat people experience. The documentary talks about one individual experience surviving her boat people experience after a Navy ship’s captain refused to rescue them at open sea, after which 58 people starved to death, and only 52 survived (partially through cannibalism). The documentary Bolinao 52 complements the boat people movie Journey from the Fall very well, and is also a movie that won't keep your eyes dry.
Oh, Saigon
Doan Hoang’s personal documentary about how her family had to abandon her half-sister in Vietnam when escaping during the fall of Saigon on April 30th 1975, and how her family deals with this hardship as well as her attempt to organize an extended family reunion is a production that is worth the watch-especially for non-Vietnamese people. The documentary provides a lot of very good background information on the “basics of the Vietnam war” and is accompanied with a lot of archival footage (some of which I have never seen before). During one of the footage, I even recognized the German rescue ship that picked up my family when we escaped from Vietnam in 1979-neat, huh?
Going Home
“Going Home” is a 20-minute short about a Vietnamese American family in Northern California, whose religious Dad decides to return to Vietnam to practice his Buddhist meditation. The unscripted home-video was shot by the son of the family within a period of 24 hours—covering mainly only the night before the Dad’s departure as the mom reminisces on the family’s escape from Vietnam as well as the morning of her Dad’s departure. Presented entirely in black and white, the home-video is edited beautifully through close-ups, but relies on no other effect besides the unscripted dialogue.
Footy Legends
“Footy Legend” is the production of Vietnamese Australian Khoa Do. The comedy/drama tells the underdog story of an unusual group of non-athletes, each with their own personal problems, trying to win a local rugby competition. At the heart of this group, is an unemployed Vietnamese Australian who tries to find a job to regain the right to be the legal guardian of his little sister. Albeit being fairly predictable, it’s a funny comedy with a human touch.
Story of Pao
Okay, fine. I’ve seen “Story of Pao” last November in Boston, but I feel I should include this in this list, since it’s also a “recent” movie that toured the US lately and I failed to write a report on it. Vietnam’s official entry to the 2007 Academy Awards tells the story of a Vietnamese pageant discovering her family’s painful secrets in Sapa. The movie is comparable to ‘Buffalo Boy’ in its coming of age themes and scenery. Some critics claim that the complicated love relationships presented in this movie is atypical for the simple lifves of the ethnic groups in North Vietnam, but I can’t comment on this too much. The movie is a bit too slow for me though.
Owl and the Sparrow
I very, very, very much regret not being able to see “Owl and the Sparrow” at either festival due to scheduling conflicts, for its story of a Vietnamese flight attendant, run-away child and zoo keeper is quite intriguing and the movie even won Best Narrative Feature Award at the San Jose film festival.
Journey from the Fall
Go read the rest of my blog. But some updates: we added a showing in San Diego and Washington, DC on April 6th, so be there or be square.