Monsoon

Movie night with Iris.

Director Hong Khaou draws upon his own experiences with this moving tale of a British-Vietnamese man returning to Saigon for the first time in over thirty years to try to find a fitting place to scatter his parents' ashes.

This opens with a beautiful aerial shot showing a road being devoured by a swarm of scooters before a number of cars attempt to struggle their way through. As well as preparing the viewer for the constant soundtrack of Vietnamese traffic, it is an effective metaphor for the protagonist's own struggles. We are taken along on this journey of discovery for Kit as he deals with the emotional turmoil of bereavement at the same time as exploring his own cultural identity, feeling simultaneously like a tourist and someone with roots in a country foreign to him.

Monsoon is not for those with a preference for plot-driven films with mood and emotion very much driving the narrative.

For every critic afraid to tell the truth about an Asian centric film starring Henry Golding, I'll do it for you. It's a non-existent script where Henry spends 75% of movie wandering around saying and doing nothing. With little character development and zero depth to Henry's acting, there is little left of value to the film. Perhaps this emotional, mostly nonspeaking journey could have been saved by an actor who knew how to act well enough to make us feel something, anything, besides boredom.

The break-neck speed of the economic success and associated development experienced by Viet Nam in recent decades is well-known, yet for many outside the country mention of it still brings to mind the horrors of the 1955-75 war. In 'Monsoon' Kit, who as a child in the late 1970s left the country as one of the boat people, returns for the first time to scatter his parents' ashes. But as he explores Sài Gòn and meets relatives last seen thirty years ago, he finds much of the modern country does not resemble the distant memories of his childhood. Relief from this confusion comes in the muscular arms of Lewis, an American entrepreneur struggling with the ghosts of his father's involvement in the war.

Kit's bewilderment at the modern face of a country long ago left behind reminded me of many British expats I have met during my travels - pining after a country that I doubt ever really existed as they remember it. Unfortunately writer/director Hong Khaou portrays this by filming many sequences of Kit staring glumly at buildings (although to be fair, sometimes he gets closer to them and we get instead a shot of Kit staring glumly at a door, which at least adds a bit of variety). Lead actor Henry Golding does not help: I like a subtle performance, but there is a difference between subtle and simply sounding uninterested in the lines you are delivering. Parker Sawyers puts a bit more oomph into his portrayal of Lewis and thus creates a more interesting character. I also found interesting the character of Linh, a young and modern local woman under pressure to join her family's tea business which she finds hopelessly out-of-date and inefficient, even if it provides a quality product. In her scenes Khaou explores, in a balanced way, the disagreements between modernity and tradition, between the young and their elders.

Unfortunately, though, there is not enough of either Linh or Lewis to rescue this film. I can say it was worth seeing once, but I will not be troubling myself to watch it again.

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.)

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.