In the big city chaos of Hanoi, two newlyweds have to come to terms with life before they can be together. Atmospherically filmed reconnaissance of the shadow world of lust and loneliness, passion and pain.
Duyen is getting married. She thinks she loves her fiance, who is two years younger. But what does that actually mean? The tempestuous wedding ends without romance. The naive bridegroom turns out to be a mother's boy. He is carried into the bedroom blind drunk and is later incapable of consummating the marriage. Through a jealous girlfriend, Duyen finds herself in the circles of a charming man of the world who has no respect for faithfulness or morality and who awakens confusing feelings in her. The inexperienced husband has meanwhile crossed the path of a teenage girl who fled her father.
The sultry, chaotic city of Hanoi is the backdrop for the reconnaissance of an unknown world of desire and loneliness, passion and pain. The roaming is occasionally reminiscent of an outing by Antonioni in Vietnam. In Venice it won the international critics' FIPRESCI Prize.
PROGRAMMER NOTES
Old-fashioned craftsmanship can still get in the way of Vietnamese films. Locked up as they are in a cultural and political situation characterised by quite a few restrictions, it doesn't help if the films also have traditional look. Chuyên Bui Thac is very aware of this. That's also why he thinks that a new generation of film makers should have been brought up differently and that film students should look at different films in order to develop a contemporary and international taste. To achieve this, he has founded his own educational centre in Hanoi, the Center for Assistance and Development of Movie Talents. Two years ago, I dropped in and immediately Bui Thac put me in front of a class. 'Learn from this international festival gentleman,' he said and gave me the floor.
He is equally practical and pragmatic in the making of his films. He clearly searches for a supple craftsmanship. I found a film made behind the scenes on Adrift that reveals this clearly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnVKvO0D3Qo
Bui Thac is not only a practical and also a courageous man. Vietnam is still Communist and has a strict and, in moral terms, Conservative censorship. Tackling themes such as sexual problems and lesbian tendencies, which most emphatically happens in Adrift, is difficult and a film maker who focuses on that is certainly not the frightened type.
GjZ