I learned that the Vietnamese title of the film means "The Endless Field". however The Floating Lives is a brilliant translation. All is floating, lives, rivers,fates, all constantly ever changing.
A dysfunctional family, always on the run. One day the son observes that furious village women beat up a woman. The son helps her. We learn that she is a prostitute. Also she comes from a dysfunctional fa,ily without a father. The daughter sees in the woman some kind of elder sister, the son discovers am erotic attraction. The father is a bit of a tyrant, floating on the rivers, refusing to put down roots.
The quartet makes a living from ducks and avian flu puts an end to their quiet lives. They may be able to hide from the authorities, but they fail to hide from the envy of jealous peasants. Their lives change completely and all continue their lives on a new stage.
The last part, the avian flu still seems an integral aprt of the plot, as the point of no return, but the outcome and the end of the floating life seems to me too unanticipated. Maybe there are cultural clues, I missed,but I understood this ending as a gesture to the communist authorities: order has been restored.
There are many layers in this film, Vietnamese cinema at its best!
8/10.
A dysfunctional family, always on the run. One day the son observes that furious village women beat up a woman. The son helps her. We learn that she is a prostitute. Also she comes from a dysfunctional fa,ily without a father. The daughter sees in the woman some kind of elder sister, the son discovers am erotic attraction. The father is a bit of a tyrant, floating on the rivers, refusing to put down roots.
The quartet makes a living from ducks and avian flu puts an end to their quiet lives. They may be able to hide from the authorities, but they fail to hide from the envy of jealous peasants. Their lives change completely and all continue their lives on a new stage.
The last part, the avian flu still seems an integral aprt of the plot, as the point of no return, but the outcome and the end of the floating life seems to me too unanticipated. Maybe there are cultural clues, I missed,but I understood this ending as a gesture to the communist authorities: order has been restored.
There are many layers in this film, Vietnamese cinema at its best!
8/10.
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| Endeless Marks -- fragments of reality |
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