Wednesday, December 9
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium
Spanning the turbulent period from 1954 to 1966, the controversial Áo Lụa Hà Ðông begins in the picturesque town of Hà Ðông just prior to the collapse of French colonial rule. The film follows the kind hunchback Gu (Quoc Khanh) and the beautiful servant girl Dan (Truong Ngoc Anh). After a brief courtship, but without the means to marry, Gu gives his “bride” the precious áo dài (national women’s garment in Viet Nam) he’s been carrying since childhood. Betrothed in their own eyes, the couple take flight after the assasination of Gu’s cruel master and start their new life together. Twelve years later, the couple struggle to support their growing family in the southern seaside town of Hôi An. Desperate to give her daughters the required áo dài to attend school, Dan turns to degrading jobs to earn money to purchase the cloth. With a luminous central performance by Bride of Silence star Truong Ngoc Anh as the resilient Dan, and utterly charming turns by the youngsters playing her spirited daughters (Nguyen Thu Trang and Tran Thien Tu), the film resonates as a tribute to the suffering and generosity of Vietnamese women symbolized by the áo dài’s cultural significance. Áo Lụa Hà Ðông was Viet Nam’s submission to the foreign-language category at the Oscars and winner of the Audience Award at the Pusan International Film Festival in 2006. (Sources: Variety and ericdsnider.com)
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Korean Studies Auditorium 6:30 PM
Dong Loc Crossroad is a poignant, poetic, and heartbreaking true-life story of eleven members of an all-female unit of north Vietnamese volunteers charged with the hazardous task of detonating unexploded ordnance at a key crossroad during the Viet Nam War. The beautiful and haunting soundtrack features rare royal court songs interspersed with patriotic songs of the era. Dong Loc Crossroad won the Gold Lotus Prize for Best Film at the 12th Vietnamese Film Festival in 1999. It is being screened here for the first time with English subtitles produced by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
Wednesday, 25 February 2010
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium
Directed by Jonathan Foo and Nguyen Phan Quang Binh
Vietnam/Singapore, 2002, 98 minutes
Vietnamese with English Subtitles
An anecdotal, semi-documentary reflection on the Vietnam War from the point of view of some young Viet Cong conscripts, “Song of the Stork” focuses on the human rather than political element to largely engrossing effect. Recounted by former North Vietnamese army cameraman Tran Van Thuy, the film centers on new recruits who arrive at the Xuan Mai Training Camp in summer ’67. Manh is a 16-year-old farmer’s son who lied about his age to enlist; May, from the same village, is a more carefree type. Also in the mix is Hanoi writer Van, who marries his student girlfriend during a few days’ leave, and Lam, who becomes a spy below the border. In picture’s most interesting thread, Lam marries a South Vietnamese colonel’s daughter but stays on to welcome the victorious northern army into Saigon in April ’75 when she and her family flee to the U.S. – Variety
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February 15, 12:00 p.m. Presented by Professor Pierre Asselin, Chaminade University
Due to the failure of western scholars to exploit records and studies in the Vietnamese language, there are few good studies and assessments of the communist leadership prior to the Viet Nam War. That is especially evident in the work of American diplomatic historians, whose studies on the war reflect a poor understanding of “the enemy.” In a recent essay, to illustrate, Robert Buzzanco suggested that history and instinct were the primary forces guiding the Vietnamese war effort. “The Vietnamese viewed their struggle [against the United States] as another round in a historical process that had already lasted over two millennia,” he wrote, making no similar reductionist claim about the forces behind the American war effort. Viet Nam was “pulled into conflict due to the United States’ larger goals in that region,” Buzzanco also wrote, leaving no room for agency on the part of Vietnamese leaders in the causes and coming of the war. Among the least studied and most misunderstood dimensions of this time period are the workings of the Hanoi leadership, including its organizational functions, its political philosophy, and its perspectives on conflict with the United States.This talk addresses the policymaking of leaders of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party in the pivotal period of 1963-64. Specifically, it traces the rise and triumph of a “hawkish” group within the Party leadership, and the consequences of that change of leadership for the revolutionary situation in southern Viet Nam, for North Viet Nam’s relationship with China and the Soviet Union, and for the coming of the American war.
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