In October 2010, Hanoi celebrated the 1,000th anniversary of its birth. And in continuation of the city’s the week-long celebrations came the First Vietnam International Film Festival. Organised by the Vietnamese Cinema Department — with the Pusan Film Festival in Korea as its partner — it had a competition of principally Southeast Asian films with an international jury, a Netpac award with an all-Asian jury and a competition for short and documentary films judged by a mixed jury. The six-day event was packed with screenings, gala red-carpet evenings, dinners and receptions accompanied by traditional music and dance performances, visits to historic sites in Hanoi... and 68 films in three different venues.
I had first gone to Hanoi in 1987. It was then a small town barely recovering from the ravages of the war; it was dark, starkly poor, but hugely inspiring. The small streets were packed with cyclists, including young women in their flowing white aodais, very few cars in sight. The grand old French showpiece hotel the Metropole, where I stayed, was a wreck. The magnificent large rooms showed vestiges of earlier grandeur but now the carpets and curtains were faded and frayed, the furniture decrepit, the electricity temperamental so even on a hot summer afternoon the fans did not always work. The airport was tiny, manned by grim men in uniform. Signs of the aftermath of war were everywhere. But they did not take away from the loveliness of the lakes sprinkled across the city, the beautiful temples and pagodas everywhere, the smiles and warmth of the people. The now-famous Vietnamese cuisine could only be found in makeshift restaurants in peoples’ homes on dimly lit streets — and it was delicious! The few there were had almost nothing in them.
Today, Hanoi is sparkling. Brightly lit streets overcrowded with cars, thriving markets with a vast range of Vietnamese crafts, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, cineplexes in big department stores, shopping malls carrying international brands… The young women are now in jeans, the older ones wear dresses (aodais are donned only on special occasions), cars and motor cycles have replaced the bicycles The Metropole hotel has been restored to shimmering elegance, the old Opera House now aglow, was the red carpeted venue for the stars to walk on one evening and the main auditorium was the venue for three filled-to- capacity seminars dedicated to enhancing filmmaking in Vietnam.
On one evening the Film Festival’s red carpet led into the Temple of Literature for a reception for the delegates. The 11th century Temple of Literature was once a university for princes and the children of mandarins. It is one of the most beautiful monuments which dot Hanoi and delight the increasing number of tourists flocking to this city. Museums abound — including the war museum with its terrifying reminders of the war — with the Ho Chi Minh memorial a major draw. Beautiful, sprawling lawns surround the house where Uncle Ho lived, his mausoleum, and a museum with some unique documents.
Within easy reach of Hanoi lies Halong Bay, made world famous by the celebrated French film Indochine by Regis Wagner. A three-hour drive takes you to the bay from where one boards a houseboat (shades of Srinagar!) for an idyllic 24-hour cruise weaving through giant rocks jutting out of a pristine sea. At night, from the deck of the boat, one is transported into a space where, as the sea merges into the sky, you are lifted out of a mundaneness of daily life into a world where dreams no longer appear impossible.
Back in Hanoi, the Film Festival carried on, with screenings and panel discussions and a workshop on shooting 3D with Panasonic. In the open space outside the Opera, an exhibition of giant photographs celebrated both the millennium of the city, and of its cinema.
It was an experience that went beyond cinema into enticing glimpses of Vietnamese culture. Even if not impeccably organised, even if the films were not the best to be found, it still left an indelible impression, succeeding in the stated aim of the Festival to “experience historical moments in the Vietnamese culture and history.” As you drive through different parts of the city to the grand opening and closing ceremonies at the National Convention Centre, the city comes alive. And, therefore, when you see a historical film like The Fate of a Songstress in Thang Long (i.e. Ascending Dragon, the earlier poetical name of Ha Noi) you enter easily into a world long gone, vestiges of which still surround you in this historic city. Nhat Kim Anh shared the Best Actress award for this film with Hong Kong’s Fiona Sit (in Break-up Club) with jury president Philip Noyce — who had shot The Quiet American in Vietnam, commenting “… it revealed parts of Vietnamese history that we as outsiders were not aware of.”
The other Vietnamese film in competition was The Lieutenant which harks back to the war years — but not nearly as successfully, dramatically or movingly as the classics When the Tenth Month Comes by Dang Nhat Minh, or The Wild Field by the late Hong Sen to whom a retrospective was devoted in the Festival. The Best Film award as well as the Netpac prize both went to the Singaporean film Sandcastle. This is the first feature by Boo Junfeng who has been winning accolades internationally for his short films. A multi-layered, intelligent and sensitive coming-of-age film that speaks to all generations, it well deserved both these awards along with a third for Best Director.
To be at a contemporary film festival in such evocative surroundings brings home the message that in the uniform world we are blindly heading towards, no price is too high to pay to preserve the diversity and colour of different cultures.
Aruna Vasudev is an eminent film critic who has been on the jury of major film festivals around the world