On writing
My father passed away in 2010. Worried that his children would waste time and money if his funeral were to follow old traditions, he wished to be cremated. We did not follow his will, however, and buried him following the old traditions. At his funeral, I experienced a dip into the spiritual world. I knew he was content with how it went. That personal experience affected my emotion, and shaped this story.
The world in which our characters live is a world of conscience-haunting griefs, of gloomy ruptures between human relations, and of an illusory spiritual world which clings to humankind in his terminal loneliness. I wrote the script a number of times, switching between different narrative techniques, but kept the soul of the story unchanged. I only finished my writing period after I found a way to tell this story in three parts, each of them completing a subject:
Part 1 - FAREWELL. I spoke about death, and the main struggle between human and death, especially the decaying of the body.
Part 2 - SEND-OFF. I established the emotional connection between human and the world after death. I distinctly described the Nether World as being beautiful, motionless, and without any menace, demon, or evil. In this world, the main struggle happens inside each person: between him and his own fear, loneliness, or feelings of guilt.
Part 3 - THIS WORLD. Where the characters live, and lived. The conflicts that took place between them led to self-destruction. And because of that, life withered. I also wanted to talk about the mutuality between lives in nature.
The cinematic language is a sum of multiple elements: magical realism; symbolism; conventionalism; social and spiritual reality; and traditional and cultural factors of northern Vietnamese residents.
The cinematic language is a sum of multiple elements: magical realism; symbolism; conventionalism; social and spiritual reality; and traditional and cultural factors of northern Vietnamese residents.
On directing
I didn’t have any academic education on how to be a director or editor. I can’t say anything theoretical about what to do as a director or how to edit a film. All I did with this story is based on my emotions and my feelings about rhythm: the tempo of character developments, the drifting of the scenes, and the rhythm of the sound when suffocated in a closed space, or when diluted in a boundless ruined world. The camera mainly shows us the view of the narrator, sometimes mixed with the characters’ points of view of their relative space in the film. The alternations of speed and length of scenes at the editing stage was done with an intention to create a rhythm of loneliness, grief, and disorientation. There are no direct dialogues or direct connections between characters, but through their relative position in the scenes—the movement within and distance to the frames—we can feel the bond of each relationship strengthening or weakening.
There are no direct dialogues or direct connections between characters, but through their relative position in the scenes—the movement within and distance to the frames—we can feel the bond of each relationship strengthening or weakening.
The countryside, with its dreary abandoned houses and frames describing invisible glances, is the opposite to a crowded upright city, with its endowment of dangers. These elements combined with the use of contrasting sounds—static noise from a radio, the silence of an abandoned house, the howling of animals, the quietness of a human, the noise of a construction site, and a funeral tune—to produce a subdued, grievous feeling of humanity.
With Mr. Tưởng, I suppress the movement of his body. Only his consciousness is moving through the choices of still frames. His inside is also still, and his sudden appearance occurs at various locations in the film. With Mộc Miên, I let her be moved more by her sexual desires, her desire to escape loneliness and boredom. There are two women of the same age: Thi and Mễ. One dies at the start of the story, another lives to wait for her own death. With each of them I limited the close-ups and forward-facing compositions to create a feeling of distance and separation from normal life. With the beautiful and poetic scene of the Nether World, I prioritized a movement between shots, as the human minds mixed up and erased those movements.
The main theme is described through the funeral music system: the traditional trèo đò (boat rowing) tune in northern Vietnamese funerals reminds the just-departed souls about things they should avoid and leads them to the Nether World. The hired criers, who are acting for people who don’t have the physical strength, emotion, or can’t be present at the funeral to cry for the departed, have their own crying chant, normally harrowing and dreary.
Colours of the houses and characters’ outfits: characters who lives in the city dress in shades cement, smog, and funeral black, while characters who live in the countryside are clothed in a distinctive yellow—the colour chosen by the northern Vietnam residents to paint their houses before the Lunar New Year or a wedding. This yellow is the symbol of a bountiful harvesting season, the colour of joy and happiness in the life of the farmers when they see the golden glow of rice and maize on their lands.
The use of song: the song “Giọt mưa thu” (“The Autumn’s Raindrop”) by Đặng Thế Phong tells the story of “The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl”. In the tale Cowherd had the responsibility of looking after the Jade Emperor’s cows . He fell in love with the Weaver Girl—one of the Emperor’s daughter—and neglected his duty. The cows stampeded into Jade Emperor’s palace. The Weaver Girl, mesmerized by Cowherd’s flute, forgot to weave. Jade Emperor was angered, and punished them with separation, forcing them to live on each end of the Milky Way.
Later on, however, moved by their love, Jade Emperor finally let them meet each other once per year on July 7th of the lunar calendar. Each time the two had to separate again, they cried a river. Their tears dropped onto earth like rain, in what is called mưa ngâu. The 7th of July is an important date in the film, when people die. The ancient proverb in the dialogues delivers the subject of “past life’s debt” in the relationships between husband with wife, child with parents, and human with human. The world of people in the film is a world of deep sorrows that haunts the human conscience, that ruptures the gloomy and dusty relationships of dust and ash, of concrete and crematorium.
Symbols and motifs
The film uses a system of symbols: betel and areca nut, chinaberry wood, funeral scarf, funeral flower and colour. Also, ancient proverbs are deployed through dialogues between the characters to transmit the theme of “fate” in the films various relationships.
Even when it is fictitious, I do not fabricate. I try to create an invisible, magical, and spiritual world to point to the cruel reality characters lose, and then try to worship.
Even when it is fictitious, I do not fabricate. I try to create an invisible, magical, and spiritual world to point to the cruel reality characters lose, and then try to worship.
The theme of the story is described through the props in the film: wedding photos were taken in Hanoi, but they are kept in the abandoned house. Betel and areca nuts express spousal relationships. The altar worship of joss paper in the Nether World sends a message about the relationship between the living with the dead and the deficiency of human life with the desire for a perfect life. The surreal garden from the Nether World has only the roots on a large white cloth, stylized from mourning scarves that reveal the human soul. An ancient incense bowl is the most sacred object in every family; many people can go or die, but the incense bowl will pass on from generation to generation. In this film it alternates from the countryside to the city.
The story is also transmitted through lighting, which arranges character positions in the film. In particular, the natural light source at sunset: Mộc Miên digging her husband's grave, Tho excavating the grave for Mễ, and Mộc Miên and Mr. Tưởng dying at sunset. This is the moment when life fades away. The compositions in the spaces of the living characters utilize a faint light source, which is set against with the intensity of the black.
In addition, smaller themed stories are interwoven, such as Mộc Miên with the pig in heat, Son “Coffin” with his desire to marry, My Hanh who is happy with their new house, and the fortune teller with their spiritual predictions, while we also see divination through betel and areca nuts, betraying instability and a loss of faith in the living world.
Kim Quy Bui
