Vietnam’s 1981 war classic Canh dong hoang (Deserted Field) won the top prize in Moscow International Film Festival 1981

Vietnam’s film industry is escaping an obsession with war and earning international recognition with a flow of daily life and individualism-centered features.

The state-funded Choi voi (Adrift) by acclaimed director Bui Thac Chuyen tells of a romantic triangle between a man and two women who harbor a secret homosexual love. It will compete in the unofficial Orizzonti section for new trends in cinema and the official Queer Lion category for films with a homosexual theme.

The film drew much interest at a press conference in Venice last Sunday, lead actress Do Thi Hai Yen told Thanh Nien by e-mail.

Many reporters asked questions about filmmaking in Vietnam, Yen said.

“Maybe because they were surprised as the film was different from what they had seen from Vietnam,” she said.

Choi voi is a new step by local filmmakers to offer audiences something fresh after decades obsessed with the Vietnam War and its aftermath.

Days of glory

The war and post-war wounds have long been a goldmine for Vietnamese directors, and the theme has generated cinematic classics that brought home many international awards.

Vi tuyen 17 ngay va dem (Days and Nights at the 17th Parallel) by veteran director Hai Ninh scooped an award from the World Peace Council and gave People’s Artist Tra Giang the Best Actress Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1973.

After the country’s reunification in 1975, the Vietnam War continued to dominate the industry, this time with contributions from southern filmmakers.

Canh dong hoang (Deserted Field), penned by famous writer Nguyen Quang Sang and directed by Hong Sen, won the highest honor in Moscow in 1981.

It describes a couple living with their baby in the middle of a deserted field who are assigned to act as messengers for revolutionary soldiers.

The film juxtaposes a peaceful life and family bonds against the atrocity of war and narrates the couple’s constant struggle to survive the war and accomplish their mission.

Last year America’s CNN channel honored Bao gio cho den thang muoi (When the Tenth Month Comes) as one of the top 18 Asian films of all time.

Dang Nhat Minh’s feature, winner of the Special Jury Award at the 1985 Hawaii International Film Festival and again at the 1989 Asia Pacific Film Festival, is a haunting portrait of a woman’s struggle with loss and her personal sacrifice during the Vietnam War.

Even nowadays the Vietnamese government continues to finance one or two war-themed productions every year, a significant number given that Vietnam only produces four or five features annually.

The acclaimed, award-winning films about war are regularly shown at foreign film festivals and other cultural events.

Hollywood too fosters this picture of Vietnam as a place of war and war alone by producing such films as “Heaven and Earth” and “Born on the Fourth of July” by Oliver Stone, “Apocalypse Now” by Francis Ford Coppola and recently “The Quiet American” directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Brendan Fraser and Michael Caine.

Inevitable changes

In the 1990s, France-based director Tran Anh Hung began to portray a different face of Vietnam through films like Mui du du xanh (The Scent of Green Papaya), Xich lo (Cyclo) and Mua he chieu thang dung (Vertical Ray of the Sun).

He won the Golden Camera at Cannes in 1993 for “The Scent of Green Papaya” and received a Golden Lion at Venice two years later for “Cyclo.”

Things began to change several years ago with the advent of private funding and cinema has begun to be profitable.

Old stories of war failed to draw the nation’s youth, who were born after 1975 and make up the larger chunk of cinemagoers in Vietnam.

Tri, a 23-year-old college graduate, told Thanh Nien he needed to see more familiar subjects of relevance in today’s world.

“I think it would be nice to see local filmmakers focusing a little bit more on the modern and fast-changing Vietnam of today,

“Most of the population is young, but we make few films that young people can relate to,” he said.

That attitude is why private producers began to make commercial films with a modern context, as they are cheaper and reach audiences with greater ease.

Le Hoang pioneered the new direction in 2003 with Gai nhay (Bar Girls), which revolves around a group of prostitutes who operate out of a bar. It made nearly VND10 billion, equivalent to US$560,978 now, in profit.

“The war is long gone; now we need films about daily life beside works of war theme,” Hoang, who won a second prize at the Italian Bergamo Film Festival 1997 for post-war drama Ai xuoi van ly (the long journey), told Thanh Nien.

The new approach was boosted by the return of several expatriate filmmakers with different tastes and styles.

French-Vietnamese director Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh amazed Vietnamese and foreign critics in 2004 with Mua len trau (Buffalo Boy).

Vividly depicting Vietnamese farmers’ lives and the Mekong Delta’s landscape in 1940s, the film has won awards in the US, France and across Asian. It was Vietnam’s official entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 78th Academy Awards in 2006.

Meanwhile, Americans Charlie Nguyen, Dustin Nguyen and Johnny Tri Nguyen kicked Vietnamese action flicks into the limelight with the 2006 blockbuster Dong mau anh hung (The Rebel).

Set in the era of French colonialism, “The Rebel” contains less preaching and relies on breathtaking martial arts sequences to entertain the audience.

Stepping into the trend, local filmmakers also created successful works about Vietnam’s culture, daily activities and personal stories and feelings.

Nguyen Vinh Son’s Trang noi day gieng (Moon at the Bottom of the Well) reflects hope, desperation and ambiguity in modern Vietnam.

It follows a young married woman who learns she cannot have children and agrees to let her husband father a child with another woman, only to discover afterwards that he and his family have taken advantage of her.

Hong Anh, who played the wronged woman, won the Murh Award for Best Actress in the Asia/Africa category at the 2008 Dubai International Film Festival in February while four months later, Son scooped the Best Asian Director award at the Imagine India Film Festival in Madrid.

Son had said earlier that many foreign audiences had been fascinated by the films’ modern setting and asked him about family life in Vietnam as they only knew about the country through war images.

Bright prospects

Back to Venice, where actress Hai Yen told Thanh Nien that after two screenings on Sunday and Monday, the audiences had praised the film for its depiction of human beings’ complicated emotions and thoughts.

“I am very proud as the film was warmly received at the world’s oldest film festival,” she said.

Beside Yen, the other main character in Choi voi is played by French-Vietnamese actress Pham Linh Dan, who had a major supporting role in the Academy Award-winning 1993 film Indochine (Indochina) with French veteran Catherine Deneuve.

Yen has also made a name for herself for winning a Golden Kite, Vietnam’s most prestigious film award, for Best Actress in 2006 for her role as a H’mong ethnic girl in Chuyen cua Pao (Pao’s Story) – another story about an individual seeking redemption and happiness.

After Venice, Chuyen will take his film to several festivals including Toronto and Pusan.

The fact that Choi voi was funded by the state and allowed to be entered in foreign film festivals also heralds a change in official attitudes as it has a lesbian theme - a taboo in a relatively conservative Asian society.

Easy-to-enjoy rom-com features like Nu hon than chet (Hot kiss 1) and Dep tung centimet (Beautiful by the centimeter) by young directors Nguyen Quang Dung and Vu Ngoc Dang escaped the censor’s axe, despite their risqué scenes and crude humor, to become box office hits.

Le Hoang said it showed that the censors had become more open-minded and considerate of Vietnamese audiences and artists.

Reported by Pham Thu Nga