Three Seasons (1999)

reviewed by
Steve Rhodes


THREE SEASONS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****):  ***

Somewhere along the way in THREE SEASONS, writer and director Tony Bui's cinematic poem, viewers finally realize that the movie isn't about anything per se. Without the heavy pretensions and somnolent length of this year's Oscar nominee THE THIN RED LINE, it shares its lyric beauty and its gorgeous cinematography. THE THIN RED LINE is ostensibly about war, although the flora and fauna seem to get the most screen time, but THREE SEASONS has much simpler ambitions. It wants to embrace the audience with a motion picture tone poem about current day Vietnam. Watching it is like lying on a white sand beach as gentle waves lap at your side.

Bui, who lives in Sunnyvale, California and left Vietnam at the age of 2, understands how to craft memorable images of the country he has visited many times. His first film, THREE SEASONS, which was an astonishing triple award winner (Grand Jury, Audience and Cinematography) at this year's Sundance film festival, is more a movie for the heart than the mind. Full of breathtaking imagery and melodious folk tunes, it casts a magical spell on its audience through the simple milieu of the people's daily routines.

In the midst of the lush visuals, three small stories grace the screen. One concerns the relationship between a relatively expensive prostitute (Zoe Bui) and a driver of a cyclo (a bicycle with a seat), played by Don Duong in the film's most memorable performance. Another is about a flower picker and seller (Ngoc Hiep Nguyen) and her fascination with a sick, fingerless poet (Manh Cuong Tran). The third concerns a mysterious ex-GI (Harvey Keitel), who is there on a visit, and a young street vendor (Huu Duoc Nguyen), who is selling an old cigarette lighter. Although each story is told with great delicacy and finesse.

In the best of the three, there is a particularly sweet scene in which a group of waiting cyclo drivers reflects on their modest income. One of them remarks that they do not earn enough money in a month to pay for even the cheapest room at the hotel outside of which they wait for their passengers. Another one, with a contented smile, says that he wouldn't want to stay at a 4 or even a 5 star hotel, since he sleeps in a 1,000 star place every night -- without a roof, he has the glorious, starry sky above to lull him to sleep.

Lisa Rinzler's radiant cinematography and the beautiful sets are likely to provide viewers' most vivid memories of THREE SEASONS. The film opens strikingly with dark, thin boats cutting through waters filled with lily pads and lotus blossoms. The women who sing melodious folk songs ("Can anyone tell how many stalks are in a rice field? How many bends are in a river? How many layers in a cloud?") are there to pick the flowers that they will sell on the city streets. Another remarkable image occurs later as one of these boats cuts through the dark fog with only a small lamp to guide it. The light casts a golden glow on the placid waters, creating a scene that Monet would have loved to capture on canvas.

The director, who is a master at staging, pays careful attention to the small details. Listen and watch the old electric fan as it slices through the heavy moist air of one of Vietnam's stifling heat waves. And listen to the soothing rain falling during the torrential downpours.

THREE SEASONS floats like a lotus blossom on still waters and is an exquisite treat for those willing to venture just a little outside of the traditional motion picture format.

THREE SEASONS runs 1:53. The film's sparse dialog is in Vietnamese with English subtitles. It is rated PG-13 for brief sexuality and mature themes and would be fine for kids around 12 and up.

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com


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