Cine wanderer: The traumas of war

• This article first appeared in the April 2022 issue of Sight and Sound. 

When I lived in New York, I used to be quite amused that Americans of a certain age would either apologise or let out a deep sigh when they learned that I was Vietnamese. Back home, my generation is somewhat psychologically removed from the baggage of war. And yet my grandmother, when she was 16, carried ammunition rounds on her young shoulders while American bombings raged on. My mother was born only a month before 1972’s Operation Linebacker II terrorized the skies of Hanoi and Haiphong, killing more than 1,500 civilians in a mere 11 days.

I once asked my grandmother how she felt when the Vietnam War ended, to which she replied, “I was happy that I didn’t have to hide from the fighter-bombers anymore.” Her answer startled me. Its matter-of-factness is devoid of any ideologies; all it speaks of is an ordinary desire to carry on with life in peace. This is the simple but powerful resilience with which ordinary Vietnamese people endure a history ravaged by violent invasions. Nevertheless, Hollywood movies about the Vietnam War are rarely interested in the emotional interiority of the Vietnamese, whose presence is reduced to unsubtitled mumblings or gory dead bodies littered across American soldiers’ paths like set props. It is as if the lives of the Vietnamese begin and end with the War. Beyond napalm clouds, we simply do not exist.

In Dang Nhat Minh’s When the Tenth Month Comes (1984), however, life and all of its beautiful mundanities remain even in times of dread. One of the finest films about the traumas of war, this masterwork inadvertently attests to the West’s tendency to centre itself in international conflicts. Often mistakenly described by Western critics as a Vietnam War film, When the Tenth Month Comes actually takes place during the border war between Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces, which began in 1978. Despite this setting, the film has almost no battle sequences and instead focuses on the day-to-day life of a typical Vietnamese village and the inner turmoil of Duyên (Lê Vân), a young widow who struggles to conceal her husband’s death in combat from her young son Tuân (Le Phong Trinh) and her ailing father-in-law.

Through the gaze of Hollywood, Vietnamese villages are a prelude to disaster; their seemingly idyllic nature belies incoming brutal ambushes and gruesome bloodshed. In contrast, having begun his career in geographic documentary, Dang imbues a sumptuous lyricism to the pastoral landscape. The evocative black-and-white cinematography lovingly caresses the rice paddy fields that glisten under the sun; their grassy stems grow tall and strong in oblivion – and perhaps in defiance – of the shelling at the borders. The sensuality of rurality also blooms in minute quotidian moments where Tuân cradles freshly laid eggs between his small hands or tends to the family’s persimmon tree, the fruits of which he is saving for his soldier father.

Besides its visual lushness, the countryside also carries an atmosphere of spirituality. Towering over the village shrine dedicated to a fallen general is an awe-striking tree whose cavernous hollow is where Duyên’s husband proposed before leaving for military conscription. Fusing a dose of the fantastical into an otherwise naturalistic narrative, one of the film’s most dazzling sequences occurs on the night of the Ghost Festival, when an open market is set up near the shrine. According to traditional lore, this occasion is when the dead will return to communicate with the living. While the casualties of war have subtly stayed in the background, such as the family altar for Duyên’s brother-in-law, who died in the Battle of Quang Tri, the full scale of the colossal human loss, which parallels the trajectory of Vietnamese history, is startlingly present in this haunting scene. As Duyên frantically searches for her husband in the crowded market, she is surrounded by the ghosts of past soldiers, including her late husband. Many of them are wearing modern uniforms while others are adorned with centuriesold military garb.

Apart from their pale countenance, these benevolent apparitions look as if they are still alive, their bodies unharmed by bloodshed. By depicting a parallel spiritual world, the scene simultaneously eases the pain of parting and distills the grip that the dead will always have on the living. It also situates Duyên historically in a long line of Vietnamese widows whose husbands have perished on the battlefield. In fact, the present and the past collide when she has to hold back her tears while playing the role of a wife bidding her soldier husband farewell in a folkloric village play. Considering that When the Tenth Month Comes underwent multiple revisions under state censors who objected to the “superstitious” content of the market scene, it is a fortunate miracle that the poignant encounter between Duyên and the ghost of her husband survives.

Referring to the harvest season of rice, the film’s title is taken from a poem written by Khanh (Nguyen Huu Muoi), a local teacher and the only person who knows Duyên’s secret. Full of yearning for a fruitful harvest that can soothe wartime sorrows, the poem is pasted over a kite that Khanh has made for Tuân. As the kite glides over the village, it carries not only Khanh’s longing for Duyên, but also a collective desire for a peaceful happiness that soars above the wreckage of war. Like the paddy fields, hope can flourish on bombed-out land.