Viet and Nam [NYFF 2024]

Studio: Strand Releasing
Director: Minh Quy Truong

Oct 01, 2024 By Kaveh Jalinous Web Exclusive

It’s difficult not to view Minh Quy Truong’s newest feature, aptly titled Viet and Nam, as an examination of a nation still hurting from the traumas and terrors of war. It’s no coincidence that the film’s main characters are named Viet and Nam, the grouping of their names simultaneously suggests a break in the country’s communal identity. As one would expect, there’s more to this film—which is banned in its home country—than meets the eye. It’s a film that operates within both the personal and national spheres, attempting to reconcile the two by relying on different characters’ perspectives to represent the complex, diverse feelings of a nation. While the result may not always be successful, it’s consistently moving and nearly impossible to forget.

Viet and Nam follows two young coal miners, Viet (Dao Duy Bao Dinh) and Nam (Pham Thanh Hai), who are in a secret relationship with one another, often shielded (and, to a large extent, protected) by the darkness of the space in which they work. As the two secretly take solace in each other’s embraces, their relationship is consistently tested by Nam’s impending departure from Vietnam. At the same time, both Nam and his mother (Nguyen Thi Nga) continue to be haunted by his father’s absence, who was killed in the Vietnam War. The three of them, along with another war veteran (Le Viet Tung), attempt to locate his body to gain a sense of closure. The film oscillates between these stories, but in a sense, the two narratives rely on each other. Viet and Nam’s relationship is rooted in the reality of constant loss—the people they’ve lost in the past, the moments they’re losing in the present, and the impending loss that threatens their future.

Even so, because Viet and Nam moves at such a slow pace, it’s sometimes difficult to make the connections between different aspects of the story—at least while watching the film unfold. Truong’s work is profoundly meditative—characters don’t speak unless necessary, and their phrases are usually short and to the point. Like many slow cinema films, conversations and interactions are driven by their silence. Instead, characters are completely immersed in the environments they operate in—whether that be the dark, almost outer space-like mines where Viet and Nam work, or the unsettlingly quiet forests they walk through looking for Nam’s father’s body. Especially in these moments, but throughout the entire film, Truong demonstrates a strong sense of visual framing and composition. The director is fascinated by the interactions between light and darkness, which often doubles as a metaphor for the thin, powerful line between life and death that drives much of the film’s plot. Capturing the characters and their environment in grainy, almost hypnotic 16mm film only adds to that effect.

As a slow-burning, meditative film, Viet and Nam requires patience. Scenes in the film aren’t linked by an overarching, overly direct narrative—at least at first glance. Because the film isn’t chained to either of its narratives, Truong’s sequence transitions sometimes feel abrupt and, in the most extreme of cases, confusing, but it’s a work that pieces its own puzzle in real-time. As the characters pursue their journeys—both personal and with each other—their actions, comments, and emotions become even more representative of the country in which they live. The idea of national loss becomes especially apparent in the film’s second half when the film leans more into the narrative of finding Nam’s father’s body. As the four traverse the country, eventually nearing the Vietnamese-Cambodian border, the film’s narrative and style begin to take on a more hypnotic effect, as characters’ emotions transcend conversation and, instead, become baked into the film’s narrative. While that effect can be destabilizing and unsettling, it’s one of the film’s strongest attributes. Centering the film around either narrative would have made Viet and Nam effective. The decision to intertwine the two seemingly unrelated narratives together, despite the initial confusion some may feel watching the film unfold in the moment, is what gives the film its sneakily-building, heartbreaking, and deeply effective power.

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