Việt and Nam ★★½

Việt and Nam begins in pitch black, in the dark of a coal mine. Việt (Đào Duy Bảo Định) and Nam (Thanh Hải) are shown sharing an intimate moment away from their fellow miners. They are covered in coal dust though they are at peace. As they hear the sound of approaching miners, their moment is over. Their togetherness is replaced by somberness, two sentiments that Việt and Nam oscillate between over the course of its story.

Việt and Nam live in poverty. Nam’s father went missing during the Vietnam War though Nam and his mother have never lost some semblance of hope that he may return. Việt and Nam portrays a Vietnam whose inhabitants have emotionally been torn apart. Shared suffering is an experience that director Trương Minh Quý characterizes the Vietnamese people as having. The lingering effects of the war are present as families struggle to come to terms with the absence of their loved ones.

Việt and Nam are drawn to each other through their similarity in lived experience without a father and in working in the mines. Underground their same-sex relationship is able to be intimate though they must appear only as friends when above ground. The inability for their relationship to progress casts a stillness over their lives, and their poverty provides little prospect for being able to find a wife and start a family as their elders expect from men of their age.

This stillness becomes disrupted when Nam decides he wants to leave Vietnam to pursue opportunity elsewhere. This is hurtful to Việt who wishes for Nam to stay, Việt making the comparison of Nam leaving to the wives missing their husbands who left for war. Without certainty that Nam will return, Việt would be forced to hold onto hope even if futile.

Quite directly, the characters of Việt and Nam are written to symbolize the country and people of Vietnam. Trương portrays the country as hurt and makes this characterization clear, lacking the subtlety of his slow cinema counterparts. Việt and Nam draws from Apichatpong Weerasethakul in particular as inspiration for its lush imagery of Vietnam’s forests and cinematography which, at the cost of originality, make the film visually pleasing. One might also recall Bi Gan’s films when the title card for Việt and Nam is shown 52 minutes into the film. Though it is readily apparent that Việt and Nam is a work from a young filmmaker, the film builds to a haunting conclusion that suggests Trương is capable of demonstrating prowess in visual storytelling in subsequent films.