"But why are you still alive?"
This is a war film, but it's one about the human cost to those waiting at home while loved ones go off to fight, not actual combat. In it, a young woman (Le Van) harbors a secret from her family - she knows that her husband was killed about a year ago. She keeps up the ruse by having a man she's met on a ferry write letters as if he were him, but eventually the two begin having feelings for one another. There is a fair dose of melodrama in the story set to soaring, emotional music, and it's effective at making one feel the national sorrow for millions over decades of brutal fighting. In the quote above, uttered by the innocent boy to a comrade of his dead father's, followed by the man's look of wild grief, the film also captures a sense of survivor's guilt in a deeply moving way.
Le Van is brilliant at conveying the angst of her situation and the profound isolation of keeping her secret. She's also wonderful in performing the cheo (a traditional Vietnamese theatrical opera) in the middle of the film, one which mirrored her character's life. In an earlier scene there is mention of the government selecting their village as one that will be involved with the "adoption movement for martyr families," meaning that if they've lost a son in war, another young man will "become their son" as a pragmatic replacement, a parallel to her possibly replacing her husband. Similarly, when her husband's comrade in arms appears at his father's deathbed and gives the old man comfort by pretending to be his son, we get the feeling of a desperate salve to lives lost, and people carrying on as best they can.
Throughout the film there is beautiful cinematography, completely in tune with the emotions of the people in this little village. The long shot of the new man trudging through a rice field, the young woman flying a kite he's made for her son on a hillside, and him taking the ferry across the river when the town begins to suspect a scandal are all fantastic. I also loved the bits of magical realism, like the meeting with the village god, or the market held near a temple held on (lunar) July 15, the traditional day of Tet Trung Nguyen (Ghost Festival), in the middle of the "ghost month," arranged so that living and dead can meet each other.
The film has its focus on those who suffered behind the scenes because of the war, not revolutionary propaganda as in other films, but unfortunately it can't help itself at the very end, when we see flags proudly flying, and the little boy going off to school. Maybe it was necessary as an uplift, an indication that life must go on for the people and the country after countless tragedies, but it felt a little off. Unfortunately, director Dang Nhat Minh had to run the gauntlet with the censors 13 times with this film, who were sensitive to love blossoming with the teacher and to the ghost sequence, and one wonders what this film would have looked like unfettered. Still, very well made, and packs a punch.
