Saigon Stories

There are not very many movies that can put the viewer into the trance that this one did. It left me wondering why more American films can't be made like this, with subtlety and an eye for simplistic beauty and peace in nature. The many scenes at night in the rain-soaked city only provide a stark contrast to the scenes with lotus flowers and singing, thus making them more effective and fresh. Above this, the characters were intriguing. None had a life even remotely like mine, and this is probably likewise for 99% of Americans, who live in a fast-track, needlessly complicated, and mostly material world. Materialism exists in Three Seasons, but is seen as the enemy (the plastic lotus flowers) or (in the case of the prostitute) something to overcome. I left the theatre feeling somewhat wistful that there are not more films like this being produced today.

The maturity of this young film maker was startling to me. The obviously gorgeous and varied visual feast for one's eyes combined with small subtlteties such as the nipple of the whore's breast showing through the pink nightgown that the cyclo driver gave her.. just a second.. but a revealing moment since all the clothes she dressed in as a whore never revealed her as much. Another example was in the story of the lotus flower girl and the leper.. the more she wrote his poetry the more his face appeared out of the shadows and became lit. The marriage of the visual and lighting movement reflecting the feelings of the characters is rare to see and something to be studied again in this film. And a moving performance by Keitel clearly searching for his humanity. And a perfect bit of casting with the woman who played his grown daughter. The director's sense of timing- not rushed, letting each story unfold, carrying one on the precarious wave of the confused mix of the country's old and the new, the thought provoking issues of the various different kinds of love portrayed..parental love,romantic love, poetic love, the love of beaty where it realy lies....all rare in film making today. Profoundly disturbing scenes of the street children. Nothing like this from a young American film makers that I've seen. And as a worldwide distributor of film, TV and video who tries to support new filmmakers I've seen a fair amount. I would like to know where the poetry came from and how to find it for myself to read and savor it even more.Bravo Tony Bui. Bravo Timothy Bui.

Kien An takes a job harvesting white lotuses in the fields belonging to a reclusive man and then selling them in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. After her song catches the ear of Teacher Dao, he invites her to his home where she engages him and starts to write the poetry he has within him. At the same time a cyclo driver collects Lan as a standard fare and, despite her being a working girl, decides to wait for her, quickly becoming practically her own private cyclo driver; however his interest in her quickly becomes love and he tries to break though her tough exterior to find her heart. Meanwhile on the streets of the city, Woody is a street kid selling cigarettes out of briefcase in all weather. It is here where he meets James Hager, an American looking for a daughter he believes he fathered during the war. After meeting James, Woody loses his case and believing James robbed him, sets out to find him. These three stories barely touch but are delivered as all part of the same one in this film.

The only thing I knew about this film prior to watching it was that it was the first American film to be made in Vietnam once the embargo was lifted and that inspectors for the Vietnamese government observed the entire process. With this acting as a hook for me, I decided to give this film a stab and in a way I am glad that I did. The film does the well-known technique of mixing together several stories with a vague connection (in this case seemingly flowers or some general meetings between the characters) and this succeeds in making it interesting while at the same time preventing it from really becoming as engaging as it should have been. The stories all have enough going for them to get an audience interesting in the various characters but sadly none of the three stories are original or emotionally involving enough on their own or in combination to make this a particularly impressive film. The three tales all pretty much go where you expect them to, even if some of them are pretty unlikely and unconvincing; it's a shame of course as this could have had a place in history and been really good but instead it is just OK.

The thing that will stick in my mind is how good the film looked and most of this is down to the cinematography and the direction of Tony Bui. For all his weaknesses in his plot and script, Bui makes the city look appealing without simplifying or sweetening it – the use of colour is nice but for me it was more enjoyable to see the energy, bustle and depravity of the city itself. For the western audience, Harvey Keitel is naturally going to be the biggest draw but he actually does very little other than be his own reliable self in a minor character. Duong is slightly more impressive and he plays a hackneyed character well enough to make it better than it should have been. However he, like the others, are hampered by the material to some extent. Ngoc Hiep Nguyen is sweet and pretty good; Huu Duoc Nguyen is probably the best thing in the film as he is convincing and never slips into 'cute kid' mode. Bui is alright as Lan but her character is far too simple to really allow her to have the tools to work with.

Overall this is an interesting film that is good enough to be worth seeing however it is hard to really ignore how basic the plots all turn out to be and it isn't as emotionally impacting as it could have been. The direction is good and the performances are as good as the material allows them to be but without a better script the film cannot really be more than OK.

This film is sheer poetry! The three seasons are actually three vignettes, interpersonal connections which all touch the others in strange and moving ways. (Harvey Keitel is moving as a VietNam war vet who has returned to search for his Amerasian daughter.) The use of flowers and color as metaphor for the "opening" of VietNam after the war is truly striking. Don't miss this film.

In the contemporary Ho Chi Minh, former Saigon, Kien An (Ngoc Hiep Nguyen) is a worker hired to gather and sell lotus for her master, Professor Dao (Manh Cuong Tran). Dao was a handsome poet, who is dying of leprosy. He lost his fingers, and Kien offers herself to write his poetries for him. Hai (Don Duong) is a tricycle-taxi driver, who falls in love for the expensive hooker Lan (Diep Bui). Woody is a homeless little child, working as street peddler of watches, cigarette lighters and other minor goods, who has his wallet stolen. He believes that the thief is James Hager (Harvey Keitel), a former marine who is looking for his daughter with a Vietnamese woman during the war. These three parallel bitter and beautiful stories present in a metaphoric view, the transition of the political and economical system of Vietnam. Professor Dao represents the traditional system, the communism, rotten and dying. Lan is a metaphoric view of the transition to the capitalism, corrupted, aimed and unattainable for most of the poor population. Woody and the little girl represent the next generations of excluded of the new wild system, fighting for the survival and having no perspective in life. James Hager would be the return of the American interests in Vietnam. I am intrigued with the title of this film: "Three Seasons". The lotus means the spring, the hard rain means the winter; the fallen leaves, the autumn. Where is the summer and why is it missing? "Three Seasons" is a highly recommended movie, open to the most different interpretations by the viewers. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Três Estações" ("Three Seasons")