Seeing the Past, Present, and Future of Contemporary Vietnamese Cinema through Water/Nước
by Patricia Nguyen
Nước in Vietnamese means both water and country. This symbolic association of water and nation/home flows through contemporary Vietnamese cinema as a central motif or theme in post-war Vietnam. As a coastal country, Vietnam is surrounded by water with the Red River and Mekong River running through the country like its veins, transporting people, irrigating the rice fields, and providing sustenance for spiritual rituals and cleansing. After the Vietnam-American War, nước was used in Vietnamese films to reveal and image the intimacies between people, struggles over being torn from the country, and the ever-shifting terrain of the homeland. This review focuses on the rapid development of contemporary Vietnamese cinema through three major films--The Girl on the River (Cô Gái Trên Sông), Journey From the Fall, and NUOC 2030—discuss the changing significance of water in Vietnam from national struggle to international exodus to the planetary stakes of climate change on the country.
The Girl on the River (Cô Gái Trên Sông) directed by Nhat Minh Dang released in 1987 features Nguyet, a woman who formally worked as a prostitute from the south, who ends up rescuing Thu, a soldier from the north who later disavows her after the war. The film was produced when Doi Moi policies were instituted, liberalizing the Vietnamese film industry. In this particular moment of globalization and internal change, water becomes the fluid medium where memories of war are conjured up and filtered through Nguyet’s eyes. A little over 10 years after the end of the Vietnam/American War, the memory of the nation’s conflict emerges in the story of forbidden love and betrayal between a woman from the south and a cadre officer from the north; the river’s water stands as an iconic sign of their separation. Sitting on her hospital bed she begins to tell us the story of her life on the river as a prostitute, the soundscape of bombs blare above, as the gentle ripples of the river on screen take us through Nguyet’s story. It is on the unstable and constantly shifting water that Nguyet and Thu’s love can emerge. Water becomes a metaphor for the possibility of deep bonds flowing between two strangers on opposing fighting sides, but inevitably denial of this re-connection occurs once the war ends and communist reunification/reconstruction begins, leading to disastrous results and creating a melancholic desire for what could be.
The meaning of water as a marker of human and social boundaries evolves in Journey from the Fall, directed by Ham Tran in 2002. It is the first movie by a Vietnamese-Chinese director depicting the dangers of refugee migration across international waters after the Vietnam/American War. In previous films, directors only showed boat people leaving and arriving, Tran captures the perilous voyage that thousands of refugees experienced on the water itself. Long, the main character in the film decides to stay in Vietnam and ends up detained in a re-education camp due to his former alliance to the South Vietnamese government, while he urges his family to escape by boat. Mai, Long’s wife, takes their son and mother to escape by boat, facing the danger of Thai pirates, being lost at sea, starvation, and dire thirst amidst a vast ocean of water. Water becomes the central place of struggle and the fight for survival in this film as waves crash against the boat and bodies are tossed against the violent motion of the sea. The tension of nước lies between the contradictions of Vietnamese boat refugees seeking refugee on the nước, or water, while being without nước or country. Water becomes a place of the in-between, somewhere floating amid the past and future, between home and the unknown as Mai and fellow boat refugees fight against the forces of nature for the mystery of what lies just beyond.
Moving into 2014, director Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo brings us NUOC 2030. In this film, water takes center stage and the audience is immersed into a dystopic underwater future. Set in the year 2030 in the southern coastal regions of Vietnam, NUOC 2030 is a murder mystery filmed on the water in the context of the rising sea levels due to global climate change. A young woman is in search of the “truth” in the murder of her husband in the midst of a daily battle to survive amidst the rising cost of food, multinational commodification of agriculture, and the fear of unknown health issues caused by unregulated technology. Beautiful underwater shots of the woman gliding through the water and fighting its very elements to breathe distill a sense of harshness within beauty. The fight over water to survive and the fight against the very elements that allow us to live provoke the audience to think about the future of the country impacted by climate change and private corporatization of public resources. What are the planetary stakes of Vietnam going underwater? Ultimately, what lies in the future for our nước? The answers to these questions are as mysterious as how water became the major source of life on earth and the place of origins for the Vietnamese people.
In the development of contemporary Vietnamese cinema water plays a vital role not only in the cinematography and narrative of film but it also structures the relationship made between strangers, families, forsaken lovers, and all those looking for their true home.
The Girl on the River (Cô Gái Trên Sông) directed by Nhat Minh Dang released in 1987 features Nguyet, a woman who formally worked as a prostitute from the south, who ends up rescuing Thu, a soldier from the north who later disavows her after the war. The film was produced when Doi Moi policies were instituted, liberalizing the Vietnamese film industry. In this particular moment of globalization and internal change, water becomes the fluid medium where memories of war are conjured up and filtered through Nguyet’s eyes. A little over 10 years after the end of the Vietnam/American War, the memory of the nation’s conflict emerges in the story of forbidden love and betrayal between a woman from the south and a cadre officer from the north; the river’s water stands as an iconic sign of their separation. Sitting on her hospital bed she begins to tell us the story of her life on the river as a prostitute, the soundscape of bombs blare above, as the gentle ripples of the river on screen take us through Nguyet’s story. It is on the unstable and constantly shifting water that Nguyet and Thu’s love can emerge. Water becomes a metaphor for the possibility of deep bonds flowing between two strangers on opposing fighting sides, but inevitably denial of this re-connection occurs once the war ends and communist reunification/reconstruction begins, leading to disastrous results and creating a melancholic desire for what could be.
The meaning of water as a marker of human and social boundaries evolves in Journey from the Fall, directed by Ham Tran in 2002. It is the first movie by a Vietnamese-Chinese director depicting the dangers of refugee migration across international waters after the Vietnam/American War. In previous films, directors only showed boat people leaving and arriving, Tran captures the perilous voyage that thousands of refugees experienced on the water itself. Long, the main character in the film decides to stay in Vietnam and ends up detained in a re-education camp due to his former alliance to the South Vietnamese government, while he urges his family to escape by boat. Mai, Long’s wife, takes their son and mother to escape by boat, facing the danger of Thai pirates, being lost at sea, starvation, and dire thirst amidst a vast ocean of water. Water becomes the central place of struggle and the fight for survival in this film as waves crash against the boat and bodies are tossed against the violent motion of the sea. The tension of nước lies between the contradictions of Vietnamese boat refugees seeking refugee on the nước, or water, while being without nước or country. Water becomes a place of the in-between, somewhere floating amid the past and future, between home and the unknown as Mai and fellow boat refugees fight against the forces of nature for the mystery of what lies just beyond.
Moving into 2014, director Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo brings us NUOC 2030. In this film, water takes center stage and the audience is immersed into a dystopic underwater future. Set in the year 2030 in the southern coastal regions of Vietnam, NUOC 2030 is a murder mystery filmed on the water in the context of the rising sea levels due to global climate change. A young woman is in search of the “truth” in the murder of her husband in the midst of a daily battle to survive amidst the rising cost of food, multinational commodification of agriculture, and the fear of unknown health issues caused by unregulated technology. Beautiful underwater shots of the woman gliding through the water and fighting its very elements to breathe distill a sense of harshness within beauty. The fight over water to survive and the fight against the very elements that allow us to live provoke the audience to think about the future of the country impacted by climate change and private corporatization of public resources. What are the planetary stakes of Vietnam going underwater? Ultimately, what lies in the future for our nước? The answers to these questions are as mysterious as how water became the major source of life on earth and the place of origins for the Vietnamese people.
In the development of contemporary Vietnamese cinema water plays a vital role not only in the cinematography and narrative of film but it also structures the relationship made between strangers, families, forsaken lovers, and all those looking for their true home.