Viet Nam

 

The Culture

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Cinema

One of Vietnam‘s earliest cinematographic efforts was a newsreel of Ho Chi Minh‘s 1945 Proclamation of independence. Later part of the battle of Dien Bien Phu were restaged for the benefit of movie cameras. Pior to reunification, the south Vietnamese movie industry produced a string of sensational , low budget flicks. Conversely , North Vietnamese film-making effort were dedicated to 'the mobilisation of the masses for economic reconstruction, the building of socialism and the struggle for national reunification’. Yawn. In recent years, Vietnamese cinema has evolved from the realm of propaganda to a world that more closely reflects the lives of modern Vietnamese people and the issues they face. Contemporary films span a wide range of themes, from warfare to modern romance. In Nguyen Khac‘s The Retired General (1988), the centre character copes with adjusting from his life as a civilian family man, symbolizing Vietnam‘s difficult transition to the post war era. Dang Nhat Minh is perhaps Vietnam‘s most prolific film maker. In the Return , Minh hones in on the complexities of modern relationships, while the Girl on the river tells stirring tale of the female journalist who joins an ex-prostitute in search of her former lover, a Viet cong Soidier whose life she had saved and whose heart she‘d been promised. Young overseas - Vietnamese film directors are steadily carving a niche for themselves in the international film industry and snapping up a wards at film festivals worldwide Tran Anh Hung ‘s touching the Scent of Green Papaya (1992), filmed in France celebrates the coming of age of a young girl working as a servant for an affluent Saigon family during the 1950s. Cyclo, Tran Anh Hung‘s visually stunning masterpiece, charges to the core of HCM‘s gritty under world and its violent existence. Vietnamese merican Tony Bui made a splash in 1999 with his exquisite feature debut Three Seasons (1999). Set in present-day HCMC, this beautifully made film weaves together the lives of four unlikely characters with a US war veteran, played by Harvey Keitel, who comes to Vietnam in search of his long-lost daughter.