Forgetting Vietnam

“It all begins with two”: departure/return, earth/water, history/tourism… Starting from the ancient myth of Vietnam’s foundation – a battle between two dragons – and from the balance between earth and water that defines the country geographically, Trinh Minh-ha composes a palimpsest of words and images filmed in 1995 in Hi-8 video, then in HD in 2012. Words, superimposed, come and go like a graphic ballet that adds a layer to the archaeology visible in the landscape, a mix of ancient traditions and authoritarian attempts to eradicate them. Naming Vietnam with the pronoun “she”, Trinh implicitly likens the violence perpetrated on the country to women’s condition today. Forty years on from the war, what do the millions of visitors to this “New Thailand” see and hear? What ironical twist has turned the floating architecture designed to avoid flooding into a global fashion? Laid on peaceful and harmonious landscapes, words re-incrust a bloody past (The River of Perfume, a bloody battlefield in 1968), while the noise of a helicopter off screen during a temple visit reminds us that the State is monitoring places of worship. Under this cinematic tapestry, a clear-cut and virulent intention emerges that establishes the wiping out of memory. (Charlotte Garson)