Editor’s note: The following interview contains some spoilers for “Việt and Nam.”
Glistening stars hanging in the dark. A soaring love hidden hundreds of meters underground. Fragile bodies intertwined on a hard rock floor. Trương Minh Quý’s third feature is a story of impossible things merging and blurring, binary opposites that coalesce into something new.
That’s especially true of our titular lovers, Việt and Nam, whose romance we first encounter deep below the earth’s surface in a Vietnamese coal mine. The pair (played by Thanh Hai Pham and Duy Bao Dinh Dao) are so similar that they soon emerge as one (and are even credited as such at the end), yet they both want very different things that threaten to pull them apart.
Even the film itself is a whole split in two, divided by a title card that finally arrives around 55 minutes in. This is a story of queer love, but before that love is fractured by Nam’s dream of leaving Vietnam for a better future, he first turns to the past in search of his father, a soldier who went missing 26 years prior. Motivated by his mother’s dreams and Nam’s own otherworldly visions, he and Việt cross every boundary imaginable on their journey, traversing concrete notions of North and South as well as life and death, between what’s a dream and what is real.
“Việt and Nam” exists almost entirely in a liminal space, and that’s also been true for writer/director Trương Minh Quý in the past year as well. “It’s such a weird line of work where you keep moving around,” Quy told IndieWire during a recent interview, explaining that he’s had no time to begin researching new projects since “Việt and Nam” first debuted in Un Certain Regard at Cannes last year.
The film’s future in Quy’s homeland remains ambiguous too after Vietnamese authorities banned his latest project for its portrayal of “a gloomy, deadlocked, and negative view” about the country. Yet “Việt and Nam” has continued to make waves regardless because in truth, it’s anything but “gloomy” or “negative.” This is a story of love at its most undeniable, be it love between two men who see themselves in each other, a mother who accepts her son at a time when that wasn’t always feasible, or a family searching for answers in the spirit realm of the past.
And through it all, Quy’s love for rural Vietnam underlies every frame, every movement, like the love that vibrates between Việt and Nam deep underground.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
IndieWire: In a film full of striking imagery, the one moment that continues to resonate with me most is that first sex scene, where Việt and Nam make out on the hard rock floor as coal glistens like stars around them. It’s a very romantic, sensual sequence in what could have been a very unromantic setting.
Trương Minh Quý: I think that moment is indeed very special in the coal mines where they work. It’s their reality. It’s dark, it’s dangerous, it’s noisy. We can hear the explosion at the beginning of the film, and we can see that all of them are covered in dust. But at the same time, I move from this place into a shot of fantasy, a dreaming place, with this tender touch of the lovers in that coal mine.
It’s a question of how to evoke the imagination in the audience by using the darkness. Because here, our vision in this scene is very dark, most of the time. But what we can see is the twinkling of the coal dust that looks like stars in the night sky. So by combining this with the romance, the gesture and love between two of them, it seems like they are not only underground, but also traveling in outer space.
Just after having sex, one talks about their father — which is a weird combination — but I think this detail goes well, actually, because it reflects the deep meaning of the theme, this connection, which at times could be a very unexpected connection between an individual and history. History here could be a family and the father, of course, a father who was a soldier, so we see how history finds its way to intervene in our most intimate moment.
This scene is very intimate in a tender way, but then it’s also intimate in a more visceral, physical sense too, with the blood and the semen. It felt quite queer to me, that juxtaposition, that kind of connection, and it’s something that we don’t see often on screen.
This scene is also about how two of them interchange everything. In this scene, we see that one tastes the blood of the other, and then in another scene, we see the other one eat their lover’s ear wax. So it’s very physical. It’s very visceral for me. But also, this idea of how to make them become one, make their bodies interchangeable. Plus they look the same.
That was a deliberate choice, right? Them having similar hairstyles, the same uniform etc.
Yes, and at the same time, because they are coal miners, they work at a factory, so everyone has the same uniform, the same kind of hairstyle. They look like soldiers, so in a way, it reflects this reality of workers or soldiers, but also the metaphor of being two, when actually they’re one. Even in the birthday scene, they mentioned that if somebody saw them, they could just say that they are brothers.
In the credits, Việt and Nam are listed together as one too.
In the film itself, we don’t know who is who except for the credits. In the script, of course, I have to write the names for production, it’s true. But the idea is that we don’t know who is who. We don’t know who is Việt, who is Nam, but then the title is very straightforward, “Việt and Nam,” so for me, it is very interesting to create this gap because the film’s title gives the audience a very strong and clear definition. But then when you watch the film, it’s very blurred, actually. At the end, everything is unified. So I could also put the end in a bracket. It would be the same for me.
With this interplay between binaries, this blurring, it creates a liminal space which is where much of the film occurs. Again, that feels very queer, and then also imbues the story with a dream-like tone throughout, which mesmerizes the audience. When people think of a slower paced film, they might think not much is happening, but while the pace is measured here, there is a lot happening. How does your approach to pacing impact your editing style?
I think, naturally, I don’t want to cut too much. That decision, that intention, actually, is already decided while we’re filming. So most of the time, we film one scene in one shot, and most of the time it’s a wide shot, because I like to see people in the space, in the environment. For me, it’s more interesting.
For example, in French cinema, most of the time, we cut to see the character’s face. So I think there might be more interest in the faces of the characters. When we talk about slow cinema, I think we’re interested in how people move and interact with each other in the space. I didn’t deliberately make this film slow, actually, and for me, it’s not slow. But I think for the standard today, this is very slow. This film, for me, in a way we can call it, a drama, because a lot of things happen. The emotional density of the film is very dense. Especially towards the end, it explodes for me. So for me, this film requires a bit of patience from the audience, but at the end, I think it’s rather rewarding.
When we talk about editing “Việt and Nam,” we can see how the flow of time is not linear, actually. Sometimes, what we see is what would happen much later in the film. But through editing we happen to see that first. I want to follow the emotions more than the logic of lining it up.
For example, the scene with the two of them at the border on the hills, in that scene, especially, we could see how the editing goes back and forth between what could be the past, but also what could be the future. Because for me, at that moment, when we know or see that our lover is going to go away, I think at that very last moment, we also relive in ourselves the first moment, the memories in the past that we had together or some vision for the future that could happen to us. So that comes from emotion.
You’ve mentioned before that “Việt and Nam” is a time traveling film, and what you’ve just said really ties into this. That also brings to mind another scene that really stood out to me, the psychic ceremony where the woman channels what seems to be spirits from the past.
I think this scene and this character is rather different from the rest of the film, because of how the scene is filmed, and also the acting of that actress. It’s very theatrical. We can say in a way, it’s more “film.” Because the rest of the other actors, they’re more like everyday people, without a clear expression.
Through this film, I would like to connect everything, to go through different cinematic languages and grammars and styles. The challenge is how to balance all of this. This is the starting point of why such a different scene like this is included in the film.
Like you said, it doesn’t matter if the psychic is a real psychic or not. For me, this reflects a real phenomenon that happened in the past, less today, but still happens, because of that unresolved aftermath of the war. There are still a lot of remains of the soldiers everywhere. There are official ways to deal with this through the military, the government, but also this is a more personal way, because it is only through the families of the soldiers that they came to those psychics to ask for help.
In the film, we have space to think whether this is real or not. But for me, what matters is the emotional value of those psychics working in reality and, of course, in the film. After such a long time in the very difficult environment of nature, the bodies have already disappeared, become rock, become mud. So what matters is the living, actually. How to stop the guilt? How to stop feeling that you always have to blame yourself that you don’t bring your father or your grandfather home to have a proper burial?
If we think like that, I think this psychic works. Of course, many of them are scammers, but in a very human way, an emotional way, they help the living continue their lives.
Letting go of trauma and saying goodbye feels integral to the film, especially at the end, in the final shot where we see Việt and Nam float on the sea in that shipping container. It’s fascinating how you combine different time periods across different locations all within this one moment, bringing the coal mine to life in this tiny enclosed space. What was your thought process in conceptualizing that final sequence?
Looking back at that scene, it’s very complicated, all the meanings and the intention put behind that. But at the beginning, when I was writing it, this image came very naturally. Because normally I don’t follow the logic. I don’t see each image in the category of dream of reality, or the past or the future.
But at that moment in the script, when I write the two of them stuck in that coal mine, and they talk about the future, somehow the image of the container appears. Then suddenly we see them in the sea. There’s no explanation for myself, and I think I don’t need that because I think the image itself is strong, so naturally it will open up a lot of interpretation for the audience. As long as the image itself is strong and genuine and emotional. … It’s not until the end of the film we see the image of the container in a quite clear way. But then that container is floating on the sea in a very surreal way.
I don’t know for you, but for me, it’s important to not end the film on such a heavy note. Of course, we know that the two of them are inside the container and the container is floating forever on the sea. But at the same time, we know that this is an abstraction. It’s a dream, and together with the story about the watermelon and the prince that eventually came back home after many years living on the island, I think that made the film less heavy for me.
Them thinking about the future in the mine and then revisiting that location in the actual future, suggesting that everything is one. It all felt very positive to me, this idea that their love transcends linear time. But that’s open to interpretation though, of course, so I’d love to hear what you learned about yourself through writing and making the film? Was it a cathartic process?
“Việt and Nam” is my first big production, so of course, I learned a lot. Sometimes it was not easy, but I learned many things. What was good about making this film is that the crew and everyone believed in the script, even though the script is quite sensitive, let’s say. I was very transparent to everyone, so in return, I had a very good crew.
We went through a lot of things. I can’t say this was a catharsis because maybe I have more traumas now [laughs]. I think at the beginning, it’s always an urge, making something, making this film, to respond to something from reality and at the same time from inside of me, a feeling. When the audience watch, they don’t need to know what that feeling is, because it’s something that happened before and outside of the film. But making this film really reflects how I felt three, four years ago.
You mentioned that the script is quite sensitive, and you’ve talked a lot before about how “Việt and Nam” was banned in Vietnam. But aside from the ban, what do you hope “Việt and Nam” will be known for? What do you hope people take away from watching your feature?
I guess it’s about transcendence — that term is very nice — of everything. Of love. It’s cliched to say, yes, but the image of the two of them, lying next to each other in the dark coal mine with the twinkles of the coal dust, lying there in the night sky. It’s, for me, real transcendence. Of course, the film goes through a lot of heavy things, heavy subjects, history, personal drama and so on. But at the end, we can see that transcendence,
What are your thoughts on queer representation in Vietnam right now? From a Western perspective, I don’t see many local queer films breaking out internationally, so what’s your stance on where Vietnamese cinema is now in relation to queerness?
I think there are a few gay love stories, mostly between men and men. Most of them have more commercial aspects than “Việt and Nam.” They have a more direct approach to the genre of the queer movie. They’re focused on the relationship between the two men and the problems that they face to stay together.
For me, it was so natural that the two lovers are men in “Việt and Nam,” so I don’t question that. Of course, it’s the center of the film, their relationship, but the film is not about this in that same fashion as traditional queer movies. Even though I wanted to make it subtle, there are still hints of reality. That fear of being seen together in the public place. Actually, most of the time, the lovemaking scenes happen in very private, secret corners. There is a certain recognition of the difficult reality of being gay.
In this film, there is also a sense of positivity, like when the mother understood and accepted — in a very subtle way — that her son has a boyfriend. In reality, maybe it’s not that subtle, but I think the film has a sense of being transparent and honest. If we think about the film, especially the story of the mother and son, about her son being gay, if we think about that in relation to reality, we may feel that the film is a kind of fantasy. It’s a kind of fairy tale or something that’s so different from the reality that it bonds to the reality itself. It’s like, negative and positive, the image.
When you look back at what you’ve achieved so far, what are you most proud of?
It sounds like the last question of my life [laughs]. Before “Việt and Nam,” I made several short films and two other feature films. I couldn’t say if I was proud, but I think all of them, including “Việt and Nam,” they all reflect something that’s sincere inside of me. They are not detached from my daily life. So at the same time, because of that, for me, it’s very difficult to make those films and especially to watch those films, because they have such a strong connection to a certain period of my life. They reflect my relationships, my now ex, with my family.
For example, my first film in Vietnam, I filmed in my parents house with them as actors. The house was demolished a few years ago, so those films have now become a kind of archival image of the family. All of these films have something to do with my struggles, the struggle inside of me, of how to answer, or how to face, how to do something with all of these things around me, the people, the stories, the memories. Rather than saying what I am proud of, perhaps that’s what belongs to me.
Strand Releasing will release “Việt and Nam” in select theaters on Friday, March 28.
