Việt and Nam

Việt and Nam is nothing if not earthbound — much of it takes place hundreds of feet below ground, after all — and yet at times it feels transcendent, even cosmic. Such is the talent on display in writer/director Minh Quý Trương’s new film, now in limited release and gradually expanding after premiering in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes last year. It’s at least the second great movie to emerge from Vietnam in the last two years, the other being Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, as well as a promising sign from an ascendant filmmaker.

‍

Việt and Nam is named for both its protagonists and its country — a name often split into words in much the same way that the country itself was bifurcated for three decades. A little separation can create a lot of distance. We never actually learn which character is which, and even in the credits Phạm Thanh Hải and Đào Duy Bảo Định are listed together as “Nam/Việt.” The film has been banned at home, but not because of its LGBTQ+ themes; the official reason cited by Vietnam’s Cinema Department is its supposed “gloomy, deadlocked, and negative view” of the country. Were it released there, as it should be, it would be under its original name: Trong lòng đất, which means In the Heart of the Earth.

It’s a fitting title. Also embedded in the ground are undetonated bombs and unrecovered bodies, both of which are relics of the war. Nam has never met his father, who died in the conflict before he was born, and sets out to find his remains somewhere in the jungle in order to bring his mother a small modicum of peace that has eluded her for decades. “Leave the light on,” she tells him before going to sleep one night, “it’s easier for me to dream.”

‍

These dreams, to hear her tell it, offer clues as to her husband’s whereabouts. Nam never dreams of his father, conversely, which his mother believes is because she only realized she was pregnant after he left. In most other movies, such theories and superstitions would be easy to dismiss. Here they’re easy to accept as part of the fabric of a strange, sensuous environment.

‍

Should Nam succeed in finding his father, it’ll be the last thing he does in Vietnam. He’s made plans to abscond from the country in a shipping container, a decision that devastates Việt and brings to mind a tragic incident in which 39 Vietnamese people were found dead in a refrigerated truck in London. Quý has said that this was on his mind when conceiving the story, which isn’t directly about the tragedy but was clearly informed by it.

A little separation can create a lot of distance.

Việt and Nam feels indebted to the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul not only for its portrayal of secretive male love and the soft, soothing manner in which its characters speak to one another but also for its decision not to the deploy the title card until an hour in — a technique employed by the masterful Thai auteur known affectionately as “Joe” in Tropical Malady. It’s as though the film itself, like the dreams discussed therein, is in no rush to reveal itself and is content to let viewers experience it at their own leisurely pace. Doing so feels like participating in a guided meditation.

‍

All of this takes place in 2001, something we discover when a group of miners descending to their workplace discuss what they just saw on television: planes crashing into towers in America. Those buildings’ foundations were 100 meters deep, one of them notes, while their mine reaches a depth of 800 meters. It’s as though the deeper into the earth they go — below the bombs, below the bodies, and certainly below any planes in the sky — the safer they are. Mines aren’t exactly known for their safety, but this one is a refuge from the world above.