Mùa len trâu

Set in Southern Vietnam in the 1940's, Buffalo Boy is an elegant film that highlights the struggles of living in always flooded, rural Vietnam. Kim, a teenage boy, lives with his impoverished parents, but is religious, extremely kind and well-meaning. His life is changed forever one flood season when he is forced to learn the buffalo herding profession to protect his families' well being. Soon thereafter, the poverty his family lives in becomes too much to handle and his parents move away. Kim is then left to fend for himself and choose his livelihood. Throughout this film we watch Kim grow and assume many characteristics of the corrupt people he's working with, such as treating women more poorly. We see this theme of the internal struggle between his new way of life and his old morals throughout the story. Distributed by Global Lens Initiative and directed by Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh, this artistic display of Vietnam poverty is perfect for anyone interested in the history of Southeast Asia or someone who just wants to know more about the area. Although the story can be slow developing, the lessons it teaches about Vietnamese culture at this time are valuable and the graceful nature of the film is undeniable. The film was also Vietnam's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards.

OK, let's have a plot summary: Vietnamese dude leads a bunch of buffaloes in search of grass.

That's it.

(The DVD packagers are going to have a hell of a time selling this one.)

But I assure you that the symbolism, the poetry, and the commentary on the conflict of the human condition is absolutely enthralling. You have to be looking for it, though, because it's quite subtle.

We are shown a land & a culture of savagery. We travel with rogues, rapists and murderers. Even the lead character is vulnerable to lapses in moral character. But through it all, he maintains the utmost dedication to his buffaloes and to those kind humans whom he encounters along the way. To me, it's one of the most honest portrayals of moral conflict in human beings. True, we are savage and brutal, but there is also honor, if you dig down deep enough.

The Vietnamese reverence for water buffaloes is something I never understood, but now I do. Eat your heart out, Francis Ford Coppola (who had a water buffalo slaughtered in "Apocalypse Now" and blamed it on a local tribe. Yeah, right).

If you can find a copy of this rare gem, definitely give it a watch. There's a lot more to it than you'd ever expect.

A beautiful yet poignant narrative of mans paradoxical existence in relation to each other and the honest forces of nature, i.e., the duality of man as virtuous parasites. The themes of life and death are juxtaposed into a realization of powers greater than our own opinions or ethos. Director Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh successfully enlightens of the psyche of fatalistic and enduring Vietnamese people. "Mua Len Trau" needs to be placed in the top 10 best Vietnamese directed full features of all times, or at least trading-places with less then average film fest winners like "Ba Mua"; where the cinematography fools the viewer into accepting an inexplicable story.

The film, Buffalo Boy, was first aired in 2004 and was produced by Jean Brehat and directed by Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh. It was filmed in Ca Mau Province, Vietnam, and took place during the French occupation of Vietnam in the 1940s. It won the Vietnamese Golden Kite Award for Best Foreign Collaboration Feature Film and Vietnam Film Festival Award for Best Feature Film (Silver Lotus Award). It also won the director, Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh, the Vietnam Film Festival Award for Best Director. The main character is an elderly man named Kim as he reflects on his past and tells his granddaughter his story. In his story, we follow his 15 year old self who seems very hardworking despite some questionable acts he chose to undertake in his life. We can see that he values family and believes in the importance of family through his retelling of his story to his granddaughter and the acceptance of Thieu into his makeshift family when Thieu's mother asked. As stated above, the story follows Kim, as he tells his granddaughter stories from his past after she finds her father's bones. The scene then changes to Kim's perspective as we follow 15 year old Kim as he makes the trek inland with his two buffalo to find food for and protect during the flood season. Once he returns, he starts his own business with help of his new friend Det. However, after some time he sets out on another journey to find his missing father where he discovers a hidden and dark secret about his family. Kim is forced to confront this truth and just when he thought he could move on he makes a decision that brings him to where he is now with a makeshift family of his own. The theme of family is heavy in this movie and is a good movie for anyone who wants to take a look into what Vietnamese culture was during the 1940s. Especially in the fact that this whole movie is him telling his granddaughter his story so that she can be able to understand the significance of the bones that she had found as well as understand the life that her great grandfather and grandfather had lived. I would recommend this movie to anyone interested in understanding more about the culture of Southeast Asia and Vietnam specifically.

When I saw this film at the Palm Springs Film Festival I was prepared for a nice slice-of-life movie about a time and place I would never visit in any other way. This stunningly beautiful film delivers that and so much more. Set in Vietnam during the occupation by the French in the 1930's Bufalo Boy tells the story of a teenage boy who becomes a man when he leads his family's only hope for survival, two water buffalo, out of their flooded homeland to forage on higher ground. With this debut, the director combines riveting action/adventure, poignant relationships, powerful performances and excellent photography. He immerses us in a way of life that requires more courage in order to survive one day than most of us will have to summon in a life-time. Like a character with a starring role, the water is always there, always changing, always influencing the lives of those who depend on it to nurture them and fight with it to keep it from destroying them. Out soon in DVD but well worth the effort to see it on a large screen if you can.