French director travels with soul searchers after Vietnam War
French director Boris Lojkine portrayed the hopes, the prayers and the pain of Vietnamese touched by war in his film documentary, Wandering Souls, shown on Vietnam Television Monday evening.
VTV 1 broadcast Nhung Linh Hon Phieu Bat (Wandering Souls), produced by France's 4A4 Productions, telling the story of a northern Vietnamese woman who makes a journey to seek the remains of her husband, killed in the southern battle front.
The film relates the story of Tran Thi Tiep, who lost her husband Tong Ngoc Luu in 1969 when she was only 23 years old.
Tiep never remarried, and adopted a child.
She claims she does not sleep well in 40 years as she has no idea where her husband is buried, thus her greatest desire is to unearth his remains and bring them home.
Accompanying Tiep are Tho and Doan two war veterans who decide to search for the remains of their missing comrade from a map and a notebook found in a bullet box.
Lojkine documents the lives of the two war veterans and the martyr's widow by describing their journeys across the country as hopeful but eventually disappointing.
All images were recorded in the "direct documentary" style, made popular by Western filmmakers.
Instead of making the film in a traditional way, with clips of narration and background music, Lojkine used only live footage of the conversations.
The film takes on a realistic connotation with actual background noises, like crying and singing.
The story climaxes at the spirit-raising ceremony which has Tiep tossing coins to determine her future.
As she tosses, she wishes for her husband to be in a cemetery with hundreds of graves of nameless soldiers in central Quang Tri province.
After 22 tries, the yin and yang symbols finally appeared indicating that her wish would come true.
The last scene builds of its simplicity, depicting a war veteran burning incense to pray the wandering souls of soldiers, pulling a flap of washed-out uniform to wipe his tears.
The director
Lojkine, who worked as a Western philosophy lecturer at Sorbonne University in Paris before becoming a freelance documentary film maker, said it took him five years to complete the film.
"As a scientist, I don't believe in spiritual life. But I understand that Vietnam has social problems in the aftermath of the war, a major sadness," Lojkine said in a recent interview with Tuoi Tre newspaper.
"After the war, many people didn't come home, and many of the deceased didn't leave any relics or remains. Vietnamese suffer from a profound sense of loss, and they often seek resolution through spiritual methods," he said.
He said that widow Tiep ‘made’ the praying scene, despite his disbelief in spiritualism.
“No one could pray as intently and smoothly as she did,” he said
“When I brought my film to Paris, many people agreed with me. I don't believe in spiritual life but I understand the virtue of people like Mrs Tiep and Mr Tho. That may be the reason I gave up the life of a lecturer to come and stay here."
Wandering Souls follows Lojkine's first documentary film about Vietnam, Those Who Stay (Ceux qui restent), a film produced in 1993 that features the current lives of Vietnamese war veterans.
According to director Le Tuan Anh of the Vietnam Central Scientific and Documentary Studio, who worked as Lojkine's assistant, the French director was so moved that he prayed in front of martyrs' graves.
Anh says that Lojkine's prayers were always, "I am a foreigner, I am here to pray for one thing: help me to make a great film to let the world know about how you lived and died."
By Nguyen The Thinh - Thanh Nien - July 26, 2007
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