Tran Thanh’s three films can also be considered a “trilogy” with a fairly consistent theme and style, not deviating from the drill that hit the “gold mine” that he was lucky enough to discover. All three films are “title character” films – a term in cinema, in which the central character of the film is chosen as the film’s title.
These are also films that have thoroughly researched the characters in terms of psychology, background, and social context to highlight conflicts, wounds, generational conflicts, or wealth. poor in society.
Central character in Godfather and Mrs. Nu’s house is a father and mother who are oppressive and somewhat “toxic” in their behavior towards their children, even though it all comes from their love. This is quite rare, if not unprecedented, in Vietnamese entertainment films before.
With Maythe central character is a middle-aged woman with a past filled with wounds caused by her terrible father.
Not only the three characters mentioned above, but most of the characters in Tran Thanh’s three films have quite low starting points and have many flaws in personality, psychology, and behavior. The director “throws” them into a journey full of conflicts and contradictions so that each person must heal their own psychological wounds to grow up.
Tran Thanh has no “tolerance” towards older characters. Parents also have to go through a journey of “self-study” or pay a high price to realize their own lessons and understand their children. last name. This is also the way the filmmaker entices the audience to “participate” in the film’s circuit to connect and reflect on themselves. It is understandable that Tran Thanh’s films “touch” the majority.
If staying Godfather and Mrs. Nu’s houseTran Thanh’s filmmaking style is still heavy on drama and television through preaching messages that are sometimes a bit noisy and “cramming” and “coercing” viewers. Maythe film’s narrative quality is expressed more gracefully and cinematically through a multi-layered, rhythmic script.
Character Mai (Phuong Anh Dao) in a movie scene (Photo provided by the film crew).
Scenery techniques, scene design, editing and music are used in the film May also escapes the illustrative or imposing nature of the previous two films. The parallel edit at the beginning of the film to introduce the characters Mai (Phuong Anh Dao) and Sau (Tuan Tran) at the beginning of the film is a clever way of editing that implicitly predicts that they are two characters from two worlds that do not belong to each other. .
The film has a quite creative way of telling the story when switching from the dense “love” romance in the first half to the dramatic nature of the second half, to expose the tragedies from the female protagonist’s past, which always makes She encountered difficulties on her journey to find happiness.
May It is also a step forward for Tran Thanh in portraying character psychology through the pair of characters Mai (Phuong Anh Dao) and Mrs. Dao (Hong Dao) – two role models of “self-reliant” women, suffering many past pains. but still strive to improve yourself. But only in the second half of the film, when these two characters are forced into an awkward confrontation, the acting of Phuong Anh Dao and Hong Dao truly shines when both are forced to expose their human nature. truly theirs. That is also the time we realize that there are gaps between rich and poor, class and generation conflicts that are not easy to break, even in the context of modern society.
Of course, saying that makes no sense May There are no limitations. The overuse of the main character’s intensely tragic flashbacks somehow caused the film to be pulled away from the modern film circuit that had been built quite well before, heavy on “message” to attract tears from the audience. fake. Some random details of fate in the movie are still heavily arranged and somewhat unconvincing in terms of logic.
But even so, May It is truly a step forward on Tran Thanh’s journey to conquer the tastes of popular audiences and continue to prove that he is the number one filmmaker in Vietnamese commercial cinema.
What I’m quite curious about is the following Mayafter the “trilogy” hit the “gold mine” to bring popular philosophies to the masses, will Tran Thanh change to exploit bigger topics?
Author: Journalist and film critic Le Hong Lam graduated from the Faculty of Journalism, Hanoi National University; He used to work as a reporter and editor of the Vietnamese Student weekly and editorial secretary of the Sports and Culture magazine; Man.