Our Movement in Film
Oct 2008 07
Tran Anh Hung has been said as “presently the most globally acclaimed director of Vietnamese descent” (Tooze, 2003), for his 3 current films; “The Scent of Green Papaya”, “Cyclo” and “Vertical Ray of The Sun”. All 3 films are based in Vietnam and showcase a range of Vietnamese influences from culture, to contemporary Vietnamese art. However, there are also many other influences that have benefited Tran Anh Hung, and none more apparent than the influence of the French New Wave.
There are obviously many types of world cinema and film movements that Tran would have been exposed to when he studied in France. But when one watches his films, you start to see the similarities in Tran’s style and that of the directors of the French New Wave in particular.
The French New Wave directors are known for having in their films several stylistic features, which we can see also in the films of Tran Anh Hung. One such feature would be featuring “unprecedented methods of expression, such as seven-minute tracking shots” (Wikipedia, 2008) for example, a famed traffic jam scene in Jean-Luc Godard’s famed film, “Week End”. Watching Tran Anh Hung’s film “The Scent of Green Papaya will give you a taste of this characteristic. In the opening sequences, “Tran floats his camera through windows and over walls” (Tooze, 2003) in several long takes.
Another common feature of a French New Wave film would be the use of metaphors. In “A Bout De Soufflé” by Jean Luc Godard, there is a scene where one of the main characters, Poicard, finds a gun in the glove compartment of a car. He then turns on the radio and listens to a song, before using the gun to take a shot at the sun. Looking deeper, it actually symbolizes the character, defying destiny (Marie, 2000). Tran also uses many metaphors in his films. 
For example, in “Cyclo”, the film cuts to a classroom of little children singing. And shortly after that, we are brought to the scene of the main character drunk and taking drugs in his apartment. I feel this direct comparison between scenes, can be interpreted as a loss of innocence in the character. That once upon a time, he was probably like those children singing in a classroom. But now he has grown to become something ugly. Another example would be in “The Scent of Green Papaya”, in the scene where the young boy uses his finger to squish the ants along his window. We see this torturing of the ants again in another moment in the film when he drips wax on the ants. I feel this action in the character can be interpreted as to how there is always something bigger than you that you cannot control or understand.
Another characteristic we can see is the presence of politics in the films. In “Le Petit Soldat”, Jean Luc Godard “dealt with Algerian War of Independence and was notable for its attempt to present the complexity of the dispute rather than pursue any specific ideological agenda” (Wikipedia, 2008). In “The Scent of Green Papaya”, Tran Anh Hung also had some faint hints of political links, with the use of imposed sound of an overhead airplane, “along with unexplained references to a “curfew”, this was obviously alluding to the dividing Vietnamese north and south conflict” (Tooze, 2003).
And lastly, I feel that there is also a similarity in the narrative structure between Tran’s films and that of the French New Wave directors. The directors of the French New Wave criticized and attacked screenwriters at that time. Francois Truffaut wrote an article, which attacked these screenwriters called “A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema”. As stated by Douchet (1999), Truffaut was able to show that the process of “Equivalence”, the method of screenwriting then, would ultimately lead to “artistic betrayal”. This was caused by the changes that screenwriters made to a story that “deanatured” the literary work. And so the French New Wave directors looked for a new way of writing and creating narrative and their answer to this problem was the use of “Narration and voice-overs” (Douchet, 1999). And we can see this in Tran’s films such as, in Cyclo where the “Pimp” character is about to kill himself by burning down his own house. Tran used voice-over here in a dramatic fashion just like the French New Wave directors.
However, though there are several similarities in Tran’s work and that of The French New Wave directors, there are also many differences, that set Tran apart from them. For example, the French New Wave directors made use of long takes not so much from an aesthetic standpoint at first, but more from a financial point of view. “The cost of film was also a major concern; thus, efforts to save film turned into stylistic innovations: for example, in Jean Luc Godard “Breathless” , several scenes feature jump cuts, as they were filmed in one long take: parts that didn’t work were simply cut right from the middle of the take” (Wikipedia, 2008). Tran’s use and appreciation of the long take is purposeful but not with finances in mind, in fact they would require more planning time than to other simpler coverage shoots as we can see in this comment, “extremely elegant and painstakingly thought-out choreographed scenes” (Tooze, 2003).
As we can clearly see, when Tran Anh Hung moved to Paris, he was unknowingly stepping into a place that would ultimately mould him into the filmmaker that he is today. Combining styles of classic French cinema influences, and contemporary Vietnamese lifestyle and art, to create 3 masterpieces of filmmaking and making a name for Vietnam and it’s stories.
Written by Melvin Chan Chee Hung
References Douchet, J. (1999). French New Wave (Robert Bononno, Trans.). Italy: Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. French New Wave. (2008, July 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 06:09, July 23, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=French_New_Wave&oldid=224456453 Jean-Luc Godard. (2008, July 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 06:10, July 23, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean-Luc_Godard&oldid=225683839 Marie, M. (2000). ‘It Really Makes You Sick!’: Jean Luc Godard’s A bout de soufflé (1959). In Hayward, S., & Vincendeau, G. (Eds.). (2000). French Film: Texts and Contexts. New York: Routledge. Tooze, Gary W. (2003, May). DVDBeaver.com. Retrieved July 23, 2008, from Anh Hung Tran Web site: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/FILM/tran/tran.html
