Perspectives from south of the border
Cinematic flapper
Anna Nguyen
Issue date: 11/3/08 Section: Lifestyles
"Norwegian Wood," by Haruki Murakami, is a title that I can easily categorize as one of my favorite novels. I remember the very moment when I finished reading it for the first time. It was some four years ago when I was an employee at Spark Designs, a now defunct local boutique. It was a lazy Saturday morning, and I was sitting on one of the lovely vintage chairs, coffee mug on the carpeted floor and reading "Norwegian Wood."
The day was making no haste to hurry time and customers had not yet risen. Boredom is an unbearable emotion, especially when waiting for something to happen, but I took advantage of my leisure time.
An hour or two passed, a few customers made their stops and I politely placed my novel down and assisted them to the best of my ability. Once they left, it was back to Toru Watanabe's tale. After the last paragraph, I suffered from one of those moments where I kept thinking about the story and not rising from the pretty chair for many minutes.
I read an article recently that Tran Anh Hung, a Vietnamese-French director, will direct an adaptation of the novel to be released in 2010. I'm ambivalent toward the news. My favorite novel translated into a film - I know I'll watch the film with extremely high expectations once the film is released. My fear is that the film, no matter how excellent the director, will not capture the magic of Murakami's prose, which is deceptively complex.
Tran's films, however, are perhaps the only Vietnamese films I can tolerate. I care not for the massive films depicting the horrors of the Vietnam War, nor do I like the "cai luong" films that my mother adores. Cai luong is a form of modern folk opera, blending southern Vietnamese folk songs, music and spoken dialogue. The plots are the equivalent of those frightful daytime soap operas.
It's been several years since I've seen a Tran film, and I decided to watch all three of his films. I watched his "Vietnamese trilogy" backwards, according to the years that the films were released, beginning with the family drama "Vertical Ray of the Sun," to the gritty gangster film "Cyclo" and his film debut in the unconventional love story in "The Scent of Green Papaya." All three films are wonderfully captured in rich, earthy colors and the soundtrack that his longtime collaborator, Ton-That Tiet, composes is exquisite. Although I am partial to the soundtrack featured in "Vertical Ray of the Sun," which features a lovely palette of music from The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed and the late Trinh Cong Son, considered the Bob Dylan of Vietnam and my favorite Vietnamese composer, it is "Cyclo" that I would deem my favorite Tran Anh Hung film.
The day was making no haste to hurry time and customers had not yet risen. Boredom is an unbearable emotion, especially when waiting for something to happen, but I took advantage of my leisure time.
An hour or two passed, a few customers made their stops and I politely placed my novel down and assisted them to the best of my ability. Once they left, it was back to Toru Watanabe's tale. After the last paragraph, I suffered from one of those moments where I kept thinking about the story and not rising from the pretty chair for many minutes.
I read an article recently that Tran Anh Hung, a Vietnamese-French director, will direct an adaptation of the novel to be released in 2010. I'm ambivalent toward the news. My favorite novel translated into a film - I know I'll watch the film with extremely high expectations once the film is released. My fear is that the film, no matter how excellent the director, will not capture the magic of Murakami's prose, which is deceptively complex.
Tran's films, however, are perhaps the only Vietnamese films I can tolerate. I care not for the massive films depicting the horrors of the Vietnam War, nor do I like the "cai luong" films that my mother adores. Cai luong is a form of modern folk opera, blending southern Vietnamese folk songs, music and spoken dialogue. The plots are the equivalent of those frightful daytime soap operas.
It's been several years since I've seen a Tran film, and I decided to watch all three of his films. I watched his "Vietnamese trilogy" backwards, according to the years that the films were released, beginning with the family drama "Vertical Ray of the Sun," to the gritty gangster film "Cyclo" and his film debut in the unconventional love story in "The Scent of Green Papaya." All three films are wonderfully captured in rich, earthy colors and the soundtrack that his longtime collaborator, Ton-That Tiet, composes is exquisite. Although I am partial to the soundtrack featured in "Vertical Ray of the Sun," which features a lovely palette of music from The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed and the late Trinh Cong Son, considered the Bob Dylan of Vietnam and my favorite Vietnamese composer, it is "Cyclo" that I would deem my favorite Tran Anh Hung film.
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