- 11-17 Aug -

Our summer Vietnam on Film series continues with some of the best Vietnamese classic and recent features and documentaries, as well as foreign films made in - or about - Vietnam.

Vietnam on Film series is open to the public, but Hanoi Cinematheque members may reserve seats as usual.

SCHEDULE (August 11 - 17)

AUGUST

11 Monday

19:00 THE QUIET AMERICAN
21:00 CASUALTIES OF WAR

12 Tuesday

19:00 CASUALTIES OF WAR
21:00 Vietnamese Documentaries: Program 3

13 Wednesday

19:00 Vietnamese Documentaries: Program 1
21:00 Vietnamese Documentaries: Program 2

14 Thursday

19:00 REGRET TO INFORM
21:00 MAI’S AMERICA

15 Friday

19:00 THE TRAVELING CIRCUS
21:00 THE QUIET AMERICAN

16 Saturday

14:00 WHEN THE TENTH MONTH COMES
16:00 NOSTALGIA FOR THE COUNTRYSIDE
19:00 THE DESERTED VALLEY
21:00 THE REBEL

17 Sunday

14:00 TPD Student Films
16:00 THE REBEL
19:00 INDOCHINE

THE FILMS

THE QUIET AMERICAN

1958 Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz 122 minutes

English with Vietnamese audio option

Not the recent re-make with Michael Caine, this is the original Hollywood version of Graham Greene’s famous novel.

In 1952, Saigon is caught between the corrupt colonial French and American powers and a Communist uprising. An idealistic young American (Audie Murphy) champions a shadowy Third Force, but cynical British journalist Thomas Fowler (Michael Redgrave) is concerned only with the American’s interest in his mistress Phuong. When jealousy forces Fowler to take sides at last, the personal and political consequences are devastating.

Apart from the revised ending (renounced by Greene, but politically correct at the time the movie was made) this version is essentially closer to the novel than the newer version ? and is certainly worth consideration as a successful literary adaptation. Most of the exteriors were filmed in Saigon in 1957; interiors were filmed at an Italian film studio.

CASUALTIES OF WAR

U.S.A., 1989 Directed by Brian De Palma 119 minutes

English with Vietnamese audio option

Based on true events during the Vietnam War, and with stunning performances by Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn, this is one of the most punishing, morally complex movies about men at war ever made. It is a film of great emotional power and great seriousness in which all of director Brian De Palma’s talents and interests are in balance. Highly recommended.

From review by Don Willmott, Filmcritic.com:

Vietnam War movies are always tough to watch, especially for those of us who go through life burdened with liberal guilt. But of all the Vietnam movies out there, none is more painful to watch - and paradoxically more beautifully shot - than CASUALTIES OF WAR, in which all of director Brian De Palma’s prodigious talents are in full effect.

From Review by Hal Hinson, Washington Post:

What De Palma gives us, essentially, is the anatomy of an atrocity. He shows us in detail the unraveling of the moral fabric, how the descent into barbarism is a journey of steps. The film’s script was written by the playwright David Rabe, but its origins are in an actual incident, reported first in 1969 in the New Yorker by Daniel Lang, in which a five-soldier squad on a long-range reconnaissance mission kidnapped a South Vietnamese girl and took her miles away from her village, where four of the five men raped, brutalized and eventually murdered her.

In the film the participants are heartland-bred American boys whose most remarkable quality is their averageness. Their leader is a sergeant named Meserve (Sean Penn), a short-timer who wants simply to live through the last few weeks of his stint and head back to the world. Chewing up his words in a thick Jersey accent, Meserve is tough in the way that comic-book soldiers are tough; he’s all cigar butts and whorehouse bluster. In the field, though, he knows what’s what, and the other men look up to him as a model of survival. They hang on his every word, even imitate his bantam strut, because they believe their lives depend on it.

The soldier with the most to learn is a fresh-faced kid named Eriksson (Michael J. Fox), who’s been in the jungle for only three weeks and still can’t quite get it into his head that he’s signed up for a war and not a Boy Scout Camporee. Early on, this bland kid’s sunny naivete provides us with a couple of endearing comic moments, especially when he risks taking a potentially lethal gift from a villager rather than act “rude.” And in another scene, when he’s helping an old man plow a rice paddy, his openness seems almost gallant, and we want to accept his vision of the world — even the world at war — as benign and forgiving.

CASUALTIES OF WAR is the kind of culminating work that brings the rest of an artist’s career into razor-sharp focus. De Palma has created a movie that is both intensely personal and at the same time transcends the limitations of the personal. It is great in the ways that the best De Palma films have been great, but with something more — something like soul.

VIETNAMESE DOCUMENTARIES: Program 3

(3 recent documentaries)

DREAMING OF BEING A WORKER

2007 Directed by Tran Phuong Thao 50 minutes

English subtitles

In the new free trade, market economy of Vietnam, thousands of young Vietnamese girls now work in foreign-owned factories for approx $2. Per day - hardly a living wage. This brave documentary gives us an intimate look at the lives of several of these working girls.

LOOKING FOR LOVE

2007 Directed by Keith Halstead 28 minutes

English subtitles

This fascinating documentary explores the traditional Love Market of the northern highland village of Khau Vai. One weekend every year, Hmong teenagers assemble from various rural villages for a weekend of courtship. A colourful affair, with plenty of food, drink and music. Remarkably, the rituals of courtship shown here have remained intact for hundreds of years.

GREEN MEADOW

2007 Project supervised by Phan Y Ly 45 minutes

English subtitles

Bai Giua (Middle Bank) is the name given to the low-lying land in the middle of the Red River next to Hanoi. In this marginal space next to the city, twenty migrant families from different parts of the country live in floating houses on the river.

After a period of technical instruction from an experienced filmmaker, seven children from this community created a documentary movie on the daily life of their village, using their own footage, script and narration.

VIETNAMESE DOCUMENTARIES Program 1:

STORY FROM THE CORNER OF A PARK

1996 Directed by Tran Van Thuy 30 minutes

English subtitles

This moving documentary chronicles the life of a Vietnamese couple whose children were born with crippling deformities as a result of the chemical toxins used on Vietnam soldiers during the war. But the film is anything but sad. Each family member has developed a skill that has overcome their disabilities ? in most interesting and entertaining ways.

LUA’S STORY

2005 30 minutes

English subtitles

This is a quasi-documentary retracing the events in the life of Lua who became HIVpositive after her fisherman husband brought home the disease. Lua tells of descent into prostitution and subsequent time in a rehabilitation center. She regains her self esteem and begins to speak about her illness publicly, prompting other women whose situation is similar to hers, to take action. The newly empowered women come up with an unusual solution.

WHY IS THERE NO MOON IN THE DAYTIME?

2006 Directed by Bui Kim Quy 12 minutes

English subtitles

A happy couple await the outcome of a pregnancy test, but instead, the wife is told she is HIV positive. Devastated, they return to their village where the news of her infection results in her being ostracized not just by her family, but the entire village.

In early 2004 the Medical Committee Netherlands Vietnam (MCNV) invited screenwriter and director Bui Kim Quy and director Luong Dinh Dung to make this short fiction film to provoke discussion on the treatment of people with HIV in Vietnam. While the lives of some women are now improving because of the increasing availability of care and treatment, this movie is a powerful reminder of the fates of those still excluded.

SWEET HOME (Student project)

2007 Directed by Phan Huynh Trang 18 minutes

English subtitles

This outstanding student project depicts the lives of a married couple and their latch key son who is left to his own devices most of the time. Both mother and father drive xe om and work around the clock to eke out a living. They communicate with their son via blackboard messages. With the help of kindly neighbors, he prepares his own meals and gets to school. The family’s tiny world consists mainly of a bed where all three eat, sleep and the boy does his homework. Using a hand held camera and an unobstrusive technique Cassavetes would approve of, Phan Huynh Trang has made a breakthrough with this student project. Whether she continues in documentary film or makes feature films, she has transformed the genre with this impressive work.

VIETNAMESE DOCUMENTARIES Program 2:

SUBURBS OF HANOI (Documentary Film Studio)

Directed by Lai Van Sinh

English subtitles

Most of the food and crafts for sale on the streets and in the small shops of Hanoi are produced in villages surrounding the capital. This colorful documentary explores these small communities of craftsmen.

LETTER FROM THE WAVES

(Documentary Film Studio)

Directed by Vuong Khanh Luong

English subtitles

Visitors to Ha Long Bay are enchanted by the magical scenery and the quaint fishing villages that dot the landscape. In this short documentary we learn of realities of these isolated communities where illiteracy is common. Two young teachers from the mainland establish a classroom to teach the basics. A student must swim to the floating classroom because he has no other means to get there. This is a look behind the idyllic scene into the poverty and harshness of the lives of fishing villages set in a landscape developed for tourism.

A STEEP CLIMB (Documentary Film Studio)

Directed by Le Hong Chuong

English subtitles

A young teacher treks over rice fields to reach her school room. In this short compelling film, she tells of her upbringing in a leper colony and how this impelled her to become a teacher. Unusually frank, the documentary is personal, warm and has a point of view, rare in Vietnamese documentaries.

TPD STUDENT FILMS

Center for Assistance and Development of Movie Talents (TPD) was founded in 2002 by Vietnam Cinema Association and Ford Foundation. It launches projects to assist the professional development of young filmmakers. The purpose of these projects is to create a broader and more diversified film space in which young filmmakers can freely develop their talents.

10 Months 10 Films is a project that aims at encouraging and seeking for young film making talents. Especially, it will create good opportunities for young filmmakers to freely practice. The project brings about 10 quality short films per year which can be introduced to Film Festivals at home and abroad.

THE FIFTH SEASON

2005 Director: Nguyen Hoang Diep 24 minutes

Awards: 3rd Prize in National Short Film Festival

A lonely wife loved the smell of sweat on her indifferent husband’s shirts. She loved washing and caressing them when her husband off to work. One day her husband bought her a washing machine which turned down her.

WHO WAKES ME UP WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN

2004 Director: Le Thao Huyen 15 minutes

A lonely old man seemed to be talking on the phone with his children abroad every night. One day his neighbors found him dead by the phone which was then found to have been dead a long time ago.

WHITE STORKS

2004 Director: Nguyen Quynh Trang 13 minutes

Prize: Encouragement Prize in Nationwide Short Film Festival 2005

A little girl lives with her mother as a prostitute. She is lonely at night when her mother off to work. Her friends are the white storks in the fairy tale her mother told her.

MAD BOY

2004 Director: Tran Toan 14 minutes

A dump boy was abandoned by the society. He was however gifted with imitating sounds of animals. His talent helped free himself from his locked room and gave him a job as an assistant his new friend - a door-to-door soup seller.

KNOCKING ON ZEN’S GATE

2004 Director: Tran Que Ngoc 18 minutes

A young beautiful girl in short skirt visited a pagoda to tease young monks. She finally got a good lesson from the master monk here.

THE MATTRESS

2005 Director: Bui Kim Quy 28 minutes

Prize: 1st Prize in National Short Film Festival 2004

A poor cyclo man was hired to throw away a mattress of a death person. The mattress was almost new, the man decided to bring home for his mother. After a couple of nights, the poor older mother died on this fateful mattress. Should it be thrown away now?

THE MOSSY COURTYARD

2005 Director: Vuong Minh Kiet

Nominated best film for Japanese Concan Film Festival

A war veteran living in a decrepit house in Hanoi has seen his share of blood and tears in the tragedy of war to last a lifetime. But quarrels between neighbors and the sights and sounds of children playing war games don’t let him forget.

REGRET TO INFORM

1998 Directed by Barbara Sonneborn 75 minutes

English with Vietnamese audio option

Winner of seven major awards and an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary, REGRET TO INFORM has been hailed by critics for its extraordinary power and beauty.

Venturing to Vietnam twenty years after her husband was killed in a mortar attack, filmmaker Barbara Sonneborn finds a mesmerizing landscape filled with the remnants of war. Getting beyond physical and emotional devastation, she talks to those on all sides of the struggle, discovering a common bond in loss and ultimately understanding.

REGRET TO INFORM is filled with extraordinary archival footage, breathtaking visions of modern-day Vietnam, and heart-wrenching stories from American and Vietnamese women who lost their husbands to war.

MAI’S AMERICA

2002 Directed by Marlo Poras 71 minutes

English only.

MAI’S AMERICA is a personal journey that defies all expectations. Mai, a smart, vivacious, and resilient Vietnamese teenager, travels to America for her senior year of high school, shouldering her family’s high expectations and her own visions of western-style success. Yet, nothing in Mai’s wildest imagination could prepare her for what she finds in rural Mississippi, where encounters with white Pentecostal and black Baptist host-families, a local transvestite, and South Vietnamese immigrants challenge her long-held ideas about America, the concept of freedom, her identity and even her homeland of Vietnam.

Relatively privileged in Hanoi, Mai finds herself on a lower rung of the American economic ladder when she lands in Meridian, Mississippi. Her host family, composed of self-described rednecks, proves a challenge to her usually outgoing and upbeat personality. Plagued by unemployment and depression, the family shows little curiosity in their Vietnamese guest. At school, she finds it equally difficult at first to form real bonds.

But Mai is nothing if not persistent. She soon wins the heart of her host grandmother, who expresses an interest in her Vietnamese culture, and finds a worthy mentor in her high school history teacher.

THE DESERTED VALLEY

2001 Directed by Pham Nhue Giang 90 minutes

English subtitles

This extraordinary Vietnamese feature film won The Silver Lotus (Best Film), Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Actress awards at the 2002 Vietnam Film Festival, and was selected to open the International Forum of New Cinema at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival.

Shot entirely on location in a Hmuong village high in the Hoang Lien Son mountains, THE DESERTED VALLEY is an emotional tale of two schoolteachers from Hanoi who struggle to find meaning in their private and professional lives.

Directed by Ms Pham Nhue Giang, a former assistant to director Dang Nhat Minh, THE DESERTED VALLEY is a rich and entertaining movie ? and one that pushes the boundries of intimacy and sensuality in Vietnamese film.

THE DESERTED VALLEY is like a perfect symphony, with hardly a mistake anywhere. The director not only cares for the main actors, but also the extras - especially for the ethnic school children - so everybody plays their roles naturally.

With THE DESERTED VALLEY we have a proof of the potential of Vietnamese cinema, and we are confident and proud to contribute this film to world cinema.

Ngoc Ngu Long, Saigon Giai Phong

INDOCHINE

1992 Directed by Regis Wargnier 156 minutes

French with English subtitles

Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film, 1992, INDOCHINE is an intimate epic - a tale of passion and revolution in colonial Vietnam.

The first six weeks of filming were done in Vietnam, including the opening funeral procession near Hanoi, the slave market/bridge scenes at Halong Bay, and the Vietnamese marriage ceremony at The Imperial Palace in Hue.

Catherine Deneuve stars as Eliane Devries, the seemingly repressed owner of a prosperous rubber plantation in French Indochina. When her adopted Indochinese daughter innocently falls in love with Elaine’s secret lover, the scandal threatens to destroy their entire family. Set against the violence of the bloody Communist uprising, INDOCHINE is an historically accurate, emotionally wrenching epic of love and war.

“INDOCHINE sprawls and enthralls. It has the breadth and intelligence of David Lean epics. If you were to choose a film to express the agony and ambiguity of Vietnam in this century, it should be INDOCHINE”

–Richard Corliss, TIME MAGAZINE

WHEN THE TENTH MONTH COMES

1984 Directed by Dang Nhat Minh 90 minutes

English subtitles

A haunting portrait of one woman’s struggle with loss and personal sacrifice during the war, WHEN THE TENTH MONTH COMES is considered by many local and international critics to be the greatest Vietnamese movie ever made.

In the final days of the war, a beautiful young widow, Duyen, faces a daily struggle to take care of her young son and ailing father-in-law, all the while hiding from them the fact that her husband has recently been killed in battle. Keeping her secret burden to herself, she is befriended by the village schoolmaster, Zhang, who agrees to fabricate letters from her dead husband in order to spare her family sorrow. As their friendship deepens, Duyen and Zhang find themselves drawn closer to intimacy - a dangerous relationship if Duyen if to maintain her charade. The title of the movie refers to the month in which the “Day of Forgiveness” occurs; a time when it is said that departed souls may visit loved ones still living.

The film resonates beautifully with the traditional Vietnamese precepts of duty and sacrifice, combined with aesthetic influences from centuries of tradional poetry, literature and theatre.

Although this was the first post-war Vietnamese movie to be shown at foreign film festivals (winning several awards), the film has seldom been shown in Vietnam since it was produced in 1984. The movie was recently restored, with English subtitles, and we will be screening this brand new copy.

NOSTALGIA FOR THE COUNTRYSIDE

1987 Directed by Dang Nhat Minh 116 minutes

English subtitles

Powerful and poetic, NOSTALGIA FOR THE COUNTRYSIDE explores the tensions and traumas of everyday life in a rural northern Vietnamese village.

The arrival from abroad of Quyen, who fled the village as a small girl, coincides with the sexual awakening of 17-year-old Nham, through whose eyes the story unfolds.

While picturesque on the surface, the countryside that Quyen dreamed about turns out to be a landscape of poverty, passion and tragedy - though not without pockets of warmth and humor.

Somewhat controversial at the time of its release, NOSTALGIA FOR THE COUNTRYSIDE has been acclaimed by international critics as a masterpiece, due largely to the sensitive and compassionate storytelling of director Dang Nhat Minh.

THE TRAVELING CIRCUS

1988 Directed by Viet Linh 74 minutes

English subtitles

One of the most acclaimed Vietnamese films of the 1980s, THE TRAVELING CIRCUS won numerous international awards, including Grand Prix at Fribourg Third world Film Festival, Audience Award at Uppsala (Sweden) International Film Festival and First Prize at Madrid Women’s Film Festival.

With obvious influences from Bergman, DeSica and Fellini, director Viet Linh tells the bittersweet story of a small traveling circus from Hanoi stopping in an impoverished ethnic minority village in Vietnam’s central highlands. Through the eyes of a village youngster, we witness the magic of the circus, and the na�ve hope that illusion can be transformed into reality. THE TRAVELING CIRCUS is an extremely realistic, sensitive and moving film, that is rarely shown either in Vietnam or abroad.

THE REBEL

2007 Directed by Charlie Nguyen 103 minutes

English subtitles

Reported to be the most expensive Vietnamese feature ever produced, THE REBEL is a cooperative production between Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American filmmakers and actors.

Colonial Vietnam in 1922. The long-standing French occupation of the country has inflamed anti-French sentiments, triggering guerilla forces to rise up against the foreign invaders. In response, the French employ elite units of Vietnamese agents to track down and destroy these rebels.

The story follows Cuong, an undercover agent of the French. Tired of bloodshed, Cuong helps Thuy escape French forces in order to save her rebel village. Plagued by patriotic obligations, Cuong is unsure of where his loyalty lies when he is confronted with the brutal reality of French rule and his own humanity reflected in Thuy’s eyes.

Review by Andrew James at Toronto Film Festival:

When it comes to straight up martial arts films, they generally aren’t my thing. But when a film is released touting itself as the most expensive film ever from Vietnam, it must be worth a look-see. Couple that with producer/writer/star Johny Nguyen in the lead and you’ve got a picture that is nearly irresistible.

Nguyen plays Le, a young secret service agent working with the French in their occupation of Vietnam during the 1920s. He and his partner, Sy, are responsible for the safety of various French officials. Of course he is seen as a traitor to his people by many. With this occupation, a small rebel force has grown in strength and is determined to assassinate various leaders of The French occupying government. During an assassination attempt, Le kills a young boy and begins to have second thoughts about loyalty. When the torture of a suspect goes beyond boundaries, Le chooses to help the girl escape and becomes part of the rebel faction, becoming almost immediate enemies with his ex-partner, Sy.

Of course the stand out in this movie are the fight scenes. The martial arts sequences are extremely well choreographed and some of the take down moves and high kicking action sequences are almost breathless. This should be really no surprise as Johny Nguyen is no stranger to the martial arts motion pictures. He’s fought with both Jet Li and Tony Jaa while also doing stuntwork in several major, Hollywood motion pictures such as Jarhead, Serenity and Collateral. Though his face may not be recognizable, audiences know him best as the guy in the Spiderman costume in Sam Raimi’s first two movies.

But this is far from being just another martial arts movie. With the nice cinematography and interesting, historical setting, it’s almost worthy of being called a sweeping epic. The storyline is also worthy of a standard, Hollywood production. With rebels fighting imposing odds and a tyrannical, invading nation, it’s easy to pick sides; and with the historical element added, you know that there will be a few scenes that are difficult to watch for their emotional impact and their brutality.

My major enjoyment from the film came from the tangled storyline. Besides sort of an action/adventure and historical type of film, it also employs somewhat of a mystery. There are traitors and moles within each faction and the audience is kept guessing about who they might be. In fact, I was never quite sure where Le’s loyalties lied throughout much of the picture. This is the type of film where there might be a twist coming at any moment. I very much enjoyed that aspect to the movie.

The acting and dialogue throughout is surprisingly well played. I say surprising because for basically a stuntman to come forth and put together a story like this with strong, deep characters and heve them pull off their lines without cheese or feeling forced really says something about the film maker. This is not just some muscle bound henchman in the movie industry. He shows his grits as also a smart screenwriter with acting and casting talent as well.

So The Rebel is more than worth seeing when available. Not so much as an action movie with a plot than it is a dramatic, well-acted story with amazingly choreographed fight scenes within to just give it that extra push over the top. Look for great things in the future from Nguyen as The Rebel is certainly a great foundation for him and his director brother (Charlie Nguyen) to start with.

HANOI CINEMATHEQUEHanoi’s unique ‘art-house cinema’, is a members-only film society.

Memberships are available at the box office for only 100,000VND per year.

Members receive regular emails with detailed schedules and reviews of the films.

Tickets to the films are by donation.

HANOI CINEMATHEQUE 22A Hai Ba Trung Street (at the end of the alley leading to Artist’s Hotel) RESERVATIONS: Tel: 936 2648 (14:00 - 20:00) Fax: 936 2649 Email: info2@hanoicinema.org CAFE CINEMATHEQUE from 17:00 weekdays and from 13:30 weekends.