Monsoon

Not without its moments but Hong Khaou's 'Monsoon' feels frustratingly underwritten and unfocused. The acting appears wooden in many scenes and, when all is said and done, the movie is largely pointless.

Monsoon is nicely made and opens the viewer up to a slice of modern Vietnam but ultimately the film offers very little.

The film concludes with no clear conclusion on what he decided to do with his parents ashes. There was no clear resolution about the main character's mixed feelings about being back. Presumably he stays with the guy he briefly gets to know but even that relationship felt flat and with little to no substance beyond a physical one.

The majority of characters seemed rather glum and lifeless - usually wearing a frown or blank expression making their intentions and emotions hard to read.

In the end this isn't really a gay film, nor a film about family and resolution and not even a film about journey.

I wish I knew what the idea was meant to be behind this film - the director's other film, Lilting, is wonderful and so beautifully written, acted and produced. This was a let down for me.

Close

Observational and lyrical, Acclaimed BAFTA-nominee director Hong Khaou follows the personal journey of Kit (the hunky Henry Golding from "Crazy Rich Asians"), a British man who returns to modern Vietnam, his childhood place, in order to find relief for his emotional crisis. Exploring his roots and cultural identity, he meets Lewis (Parker Sawyers) and they ignite a sexually-charged relationship while dealing with each other's traumas, loneliness and lust. The result is a fascinating and inclusive, sexy and nostalgic redemptive story. (Strand Releasing will release the film in November 2020.)

For those that felt this film was too slow, too unfocused, too whatever.... Too bad for you. I love small films like this, that unveil themselves by the frame, that tell a simple story about complex circumstances and lives. To me, it was beautiful, understated, mesmerizing. A glimpse of Vietnam today, the toll the war took, the transition to economic advancement, the personal suffering and lives changed, and more. I grew up as a kid with the fake Vietnam body count on the nightly news during supper. I also grew up to be gay, and to watch that aspect of this story slowly develop left me with hope. And yes I would see it again, if only to see even more nuance I might have missed. This film was almost a random choice on a Netflix night.... I'm glad I made that choice.

Several times now I have stumbled across comments ( both in reviews and in television guides ) that the lead actor is straight. It is as if this is a comfort blanket for those in the audience who a ) do not want to confront a gay actor in the film, and b ) for those liberals who think how marvellous it is to see a straight actor being ' brave ' enough to take on the role. This is a recurring issue. James Ivory's ' Maurice ' was awash with it and so was ' Call Me By Your Name '. Given the discreet homophobia of both mainstream cinema and theatre it is not surprising Gay actors will not raise their heads above the parapet. The fact of having to explain an actor is straight is a sort of deadly homophobia in itself. Now for the film that I liked a lot. The acting from all of the cast was good but above all the direction was exceptionally good. The opening shot of cars scurrying about from a great height, like some sort of insect was a scary acknowledgement of how tiny we are in the scheme of things. This I believe occurred several times during the duration of the film and for me it was a revelation. Like an anthill we struggle with our histories, both political and personal, and how that very history is trodden on by the large feet of time. That alone made the film above the ordinary. The minimalism of the film also appealed with its Antonioni obsession with the sense of place around us mere humans, and the way we alternate between silence and noise. Of course there is a story, and for those who are interested in what has happened in Vietnam important, and the dislocation of a man who returns to a country he knew only to find he is more or less a stranger in a strange land. As for the homosexuality it is there, but despite a few brief scenes discreet. It is quite simply another aspect of the history of a character immersed in living in this great anthill called human life.