New York Film Festival 2024:

Coming Out of the Dark:
An Interview with Trương Minh Quý (Viet and Nam)
By Marya E. Gates

Born in Buôn Ma Thuột, a small city in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, filmmaker Trương Minh Quý centers his work on the power and allure of memory, especially the ghosts of war. He often uses the lush landscapes of his hometown for his films’ settings. An alum of the Asian Film Academy and the Berlinale Talents program, he has seen his films screened at festivals around the world including in Locarno, New York, Rotterdam, and Berlin. Việt and Nam, his third feature premiered earlier this year in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival and is now making its North American premiere at this year’s New York Film Festival.

With Việt and Nam, Quý casts a hypnotic spell, imbuing the hard earth of coal mines with dreamlike imagery and an all-enveloping soundscape that evokes a sense of timelessness. As the film begins, we enter the pitch-black world of coal miners Viet (Dao Duy Bao Dinh) and Nam (Pham Thanh Hai), who also happen to be secret lovers. Haunted by the memories of missing fathers and other lasting horrors of the Vietnam War, the men have found in each other a place of comfort, a feeling like home. Their soft, pale bodies are often contrasted against the darkness of the mine, their skin flecked with black soot.

Their inextricable bond is tested as Nam prepares for a voyage across the sea, taking him to where, he believes, a new life awaits. As the two prepare for Nam's imminent immigration, Ba (Viet Tung Le), a veteran and family friend, shares that he believes he knows the location of his Nam’s father's remains. The three men, along with Nam’s soulful mother, Hoa (Thi Nga Nguyen), journey into the forest in hopes of finding them and, maybe, finally, achieving some sort of closure.

Following a packed screening at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, I spoke with Quý about perceptions of the dead, the spirituality of Earth, playing within the limitations of the frame, and the importance of film festivals.

Reverse Shot: One thing that really stuck out to me was the imagery of the murky water, and then there is that song in the film that is about murky water. What does the song mean in the context of the film, and to you in particular?

Trương Minh Quý: It's a very popular lullaby. It's a song that mothers sing for children. Actually, I didn't have any intention about the lyrics, but I think that the melody and the way that she sings to Nam is really nice. And the lyrics do match the visual of the film, the way they sing about dirt and water. But it was not my intention to have the link between the lyrics and the theme. I just wanted to show this love from mother to son.

RS: I love that the film is about all these very tenuous connections between people and those who are no longer there. Obviously death is overwhelmingly present at all times. Is that something you internalized and then expressed through the film?

TMQ: Partly, yes. I think most of the time it is unconscious. I think we think about the dead as if they are still there. I don't know that there is a difference. In Vietnam, China, or Southeast Asia, we don't think that if somebody dies it means they are no longer there. They stay with us in that very peculiar presence. So, in a way, the film presents Nam’s father like that. We never see him, even a photo, but we know that he's there. He's in their life, and in a very daily way, not in some supernatural way. It's something more casual, because that's how we perceive death. It's not something that is different or strange.

RS: The imagery of the film goes in and out between what is, I think, reality and dreams. How early in the process did you know you wanted to play with that perception of reality?

TMQ: It sounds a bit paradoxical, but I always think everything in the film is real. But I discovered what you felt during the editing. The editor told me, “This looks like a dream. This looks like something surreal.” I didn’t think like that. A filmmaker cannot predict how a strong, simple image will be interpreted. For me, that is a good way to start, because we should start with something real. If I started to film something with a symbolic meaning, I think it would be a risk, because how can I be sure that the audience also can get that symbolic meaning? Maybe they will never get it. So, I think there is this level of reality, of something we can feel and see and hear, that I wanted to capture, and then the rest is just there, that dreamy feeling is there.

RS: I think it's a really interesting juxtaposition of the hard earth and this really soft romance. When did you decide to set it in a mine?

TMQ: Right at the beginning I already had it. I had the image of these two coal miners in the dark kissing. I think this is because I'm always interested in the spirituality of Earth, of the depth of Earth. There's something very spiritual in that. And this film is about home and leaving home. So, at the same time, I wanted to have this spiritual aspect of the film. But it had to be something real. It had to be seen. So that's why I think the work of the miner is perfect, because they go deep inside the earth. It's their job. But it also has this metaphysical meaning. They go back inside the Earth. They have this strong connection with the Earth that we don't have. The film is also about time traveling: when miners go down inside the Earth, somehow they go back in time. They are searching for coal, which is a million years of fossilization. So, I had this idea of searching for something inside the Earth that is narratively linked with searching for the father.

RS: You have rushing water in several sequences where the sound of it is almost overwhelming. The sound of Earth is something we sometimes take for granted, especially for those of us who live in cities. Can you talk about what you hoped to evoke with sound design?

TMQ: The work of sound is a lot of work [laughs]. With the rain at the end, I want to create something immersive, like we feel the water in the cinema. Another aspect of the sound in this film is that if you watch closely, you can see that actually there are two layers of narrative here. It's a narrative of the image that we see inside the frame, and then there is something happening outside of the frame, but we cannot see it. The frame is very limited. In the opening scene, we see the two of them in a very small corner. When they talk, we can hear the sound of the coal mining space. So, we imagine the space. Even for the ending with the rain, what we see is very minimal. We see the flood, but we don’t really see. This was simply because of the budget. We couldn’t make a strong rain. But then I think with the sound we created something more imaginative. It is like Bresson, who used to say that the sound and the image should be equal. If the image is too strong, then there's no space for the sound and vice versa.

RS: Is Bresson one of your big film influences?

TMQ: Deep, deep, very deep. Specifically in his minimal way of filming. For example, when I work with the actors, I don't tell them about the emotions, I just tell them the actions. So, in a way I think that's linked to Bresson and the way he talks about emotion,

RS: This cast is so tight-knit, with about four main characters, and you really feel the connections between them. Do you do chemistry reads while you're casting or rehearsals once you have them set?

TMQ: I'm glad you feel that, because, in reality, it's slightly different. I think I still have this documentary method, so I search for people who have a real story that somehow matches the character's story. Then I can develop the character from their real stories. Like the character who is a veteran, he's a real veteran and his confession at the end is based on his real story. That’s how I work. I think it's about the appearance. Since they already had this story, they also already had this feeling in their looks, in their eyes.

RS: Now that you have screened the film at several festivals, do you have a certain hope for what people will take with them when they leave?

TMQ: Before the Cannes premiere the film was banned in Vietnam, because of what the cinema department said is a negative portrayal of the country. That is a bit sad for me because the Vietnamese audience cannot see the film. The crew members cannot see the film in Vietnam. So inside Vietnam, there are a lot of opinions about the film, even most of the people there have not watched the film yet. So, when the film travels to a film festival like in Sydney or in Cannes, there were many Vietnamese people who came to see the film. Especially in Sydney, which has a lot of Vietnamese people. There, several of them told me, after watching the film, that they wanted to go back to Vietnam right away. This kind of feedback is very meaningful for me, especially when the film is banned in Vietnam.

RS: Are you able to go back to Vietnam, just not the film?

TMQ: It's still okay for me to go back to Vietnam, but I think it will affect my next film. I need to be a bit more careful in a way. I always wanted to work underground, outside the system. But now, after this film, I'm a bit known in Vietnam. So, for the next one, I need to be more careful.

RS: Is it common for films like this to be banned in Vietnam?

TMQ: My film is not the first film to be banned, no. Sadly, the outcome was kind of predictable. People will not be surprised if there is one Vietnamese film banned this year, and another next year or two years from now. It happens.

RS: You've been to so many festivals with this film. What has that experience been like as a filmmaker and seeing so many audiences rallying around so many films, especially in an era where theatrical moviegoing is, at least in America, slowly petering out?

TMQ: I think only when you watch a film in the cinema like that can you be so overwhelmed and share that feeling together. I'm a bit sad about the situation with film-going today. My job is to make films, and I just hope the audience will come.