Queerguru reviews VIET AND NAM an achingly beautiful queer romance from Vietnam

Coming straight from Un Certain Regard Section at Cannes Film Festival comes this extraordinary… and quite beautiful Vietnamese movie  VIET AND NAM that surrounds the most gentle queer love story that has already been banned in Vietnam. Surprisingly not because of the romance between these two young men, but reportedly for its portrayal of “a gloomy, deadlocked, and negative view” about the country and its citizens, according to an official letter from Vietnam’s Cinema Department.

It is some 35 years since the Vietnam War ended, and we see the country folk struggling to exist with their meager livings, with most of them dreaming of being able to escape to a better life abroad.  It’s 1993,  the World Center Tower bombings are referenced, but so too are all the unexploded bombs that remain from all the American raids in the Vietnam war.

The film opens in near pitch darkness and we slowly realize that we are deep down in a coal mine where we first see Viet (Dao Duy Bao Dinh) and Nam (Pham Thanh Hai), two very young miners who have inexplicably fallen in love.  How they have managed this set against such an excruciating environment with pitiful working conditions so far below the surface,  is nothing short of a miracle.  It is such a dangerous place, that at one point. Nam tells his mother  “Our lungs should now store a few kilos of coal.” 

Life above ground is not a lot better. The shack he lives in with his mother is a hovel. Also Nam desperately wants to find the body of his father who was killed in the war before Nam was born,  and locating these unknown graves has become almost a full time occupation for surviving relatives.  But Nam also wants the better life that he believes can only be obtained by being smuggled out of the country by  traffickers,  and he even goes as far as to go to a training session to learn more.  To us, and also to Viet, it may all look hopeless but by this point in the film we can really share their desperation with their lives which offers no hope or light for now or in the future.

We see why the Vietnamese Censors believe this very bleak slice of life can be written off as depressing, but in this bleakness is this gentle love affair that we get so invested in, and that gives us hope too.  Written and directed by Trương Minh Quý

NB Before viewing we were under the impression this was probably about the 2nd queer Vietnamese film we have seen, but it turns out its our 7th!  Each and every one entirely different, and not all of them are wee geme like this one

Review by ROGER WALKER-DACK.

Creator, Owner, Editor-in-Chief.  Miami Beach, FL / Provincetown, MA

Member of G.A.L.E.C.A. (Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) and NLGJA The Association of LGBT Journalists. and The Online Film Critics Society. Ex Contributing Editor The Gay Uk & Contributor Edge Media Former CEO and Menswear Designer of  Roger Dack Ltd in the UK ‘one of the hardest-working journalists in the business‘ Micheal Goff of Towleroad