THREE SEASONS (director: Tony Bui; cast: Don Duong (Hai), Nguyen Ngoc Hiep (Kien An), Tran Manh Cuong (Teacher Dao), Harvey Keitel (James Hager), Zoe Bui (Lan), Nguyen Huu Duoc (Woody), 1999)
Saigon is a different place from the days of the Vietnam war, when we defended the corrupt government of the South against the attacking communist forces from the North, and lost that unpopular war-- a war that heatedly divided our country, as well. To go back and see what that city is like now, should be interesting, especially since there is very little media coverage of Saigon that reaches main street America. The 26-year-old director, whose family escaped Vietnam when he was a two year old to live in California, has gone back to find his roots and observe his people and see how they live today.
This rather sentimental elegy to his country, plays much like a travelogue, bent on painting a pretty picture of the country despite the sad tale it tells of four diverse, gentle souls, whose symbolic fictionalized venture will prove to be very touching, as we follow them around Saigon and observe them as their lives sometimes interact with each other.
What the film lacks is a real poet's cutting edge and tension, and what is also astonishingly absent, is a view of the political situation. But what is even more astonishing, is the complete lack of anger from those who are poor, whose lives are so polarized from the very rich.
There is little risk taken here by the director, who has shot a purposefully fictionalized account of Vietnam, showing only that it is being swallowed up by capitalism and its own passivity. But he is not blaming anyone for what happened. Forgiveness, he implies, is the basis of Vietnam's onward existence. The Coca-Cola signs and the luxurious hotels serve only as reminders that this country is being overtaken by commercialism and greed, nevertheless the director seems content to film his picturesque view of the city, as is, of these materialistic intrusions appearing without any kind of analysis as to why. The pastel colors of the film and the brightness of the city, allow even the squalid slum section of town to appear to be picture perfect.
All four of the main characters the story follows, are victims of the country's past war, who are now trying to cope with their situation by understanding what it is that they are now feeling that weighs heavily in their heart.
The film opens on the site of an opulently lush lake with Kien An (Nguyen Ngoc Hiep), who is part of an all-female work force hired to pick white lotus blossoms on the temple estate of an embittered recluse. He is passing himself off as a poet and some kind of wise man, who can feel the beauty of nature in his soul. This first story relates to the beauty found in the spring weather as observed for the harvesting of the lotus.
After gathering their crop, where the women sing traditional songs, they go to Saigon and sell their flowers on the streets. Competition arises for Kien An, as vendors of plastic scented imitations do a better business than she does.
When she sings a different song from the other women's, the boss recognizes it as a song from his happy youth, when he was so filled with enthusiasm for life, until he developed leprosy and lost all his fingers, and retreated from life by hiding in the shadows, embarrassed that children made fun of him when they saw him.
Kien An writes down the poems he dictates to her, that are filled with so much pain and beauty. The heavy-handed symbolism in her story relates to how this country can't face its true self anymore, blaming itself for the disease it caught.
The next story is even cornier, as the romantic Hai (Don Duong), a cyclo driver, falls in love with Lan (Zoe Bui), a $50 a trick prostitute. Hai courts the snobbish whore in his cyclo, giving her rides from the luxury hotels in which she does her business back to her slum area apartment.
When Hai wins $200 in a cyclo race, he then pays for her services, and the haughty Lan turns out to be a frightened girl, who is confused and unsure of herself. Another symbolic message, this time relating to their country and how it must learn to love itself without being gobbled up by foreigners. The season is summer and it is extremely hot.
Next we have a street urchin peddler of trinkets, Woody (Nguyen Huu Duoc), a boy of eight or nine, who tries to sell a lighter to James Hager (Harvey Keitel) in the Apocalypse Now Bar. He is an ex-marine looking for the grown daughter he fathered, but has never seen, while stationed in Saigon during the war.
The kid's suitcase is stolen, and he spends the remainder of the film searching in the rain for the thief stealing everything he possesses that is of value, who he thinks is Harvey. Again, these characters are symbolic-- Harvey, for our country to put a closure on the past; and for the kid, to get in off of the monsoon rain and become strong in spirit, because he is the future of the country.
Everything gets tidied up in nice little packages by the film's end and every one walks away enchanted, and this very picturesque take on Saigon, that seems to be a love affair the director is having with his ancestral country, turns out to be an irksome charmer to behold. It lacks what it thinks it has: poetic vision. There is not much substance in its lyrics, and its beauty can only be taken as skin deep. When we think about what this film was saying, there is not much there that is perceptive enough to add something worthwhile to its lugubrious tale. The plain truth is, that there was just nothing striking said during this well-crafted film to hold our attention. It was mostly an arty kind of mush, fed to a Western audience that is dying to see something nice about Vietnam, even if that something can't get past being sentimental jive. The clichéd story had too many coincidences and improbabilities in it, and an incomplete picture of how this city now functions, for its story to be considered as being relevant to the topic it covered, except by those who are pleased and willing to see something about Vietnam that lets them forget about the war and the terrible conflicts it brought to both countries.
REVIEWED ON 7/11/99 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews