Cinema
Truyện cổ tích cho tuổi mười bảy
Nguyễn Xuân Sơn · 1988
Synopsis
An is seventeen, goes to the lycée of a town in the North and waits for news of her family members who have gone to the front. She invents stories for herself, lends the people around her lives they do not have, and passes through that age when one decides what one will be. The film stays with her from beginning to end, in a country at war where a gunshot is never heard, and the subject lies elsewhere: what is at stake at seventeen when the men of the family are far away.
Context
Seventy-seven minutes, from the first screenplay by Trịnh Thanh Nhã, who later became one of the studio's writers; the cinematography is by Trương Minh, the sets by Phạm Quang Vĩnh, and Lê Vi plays An. The film belongs to those years when state cinema could at last speak of something other than the front; the national festival of 1988 crowned it four times, for direction, screenplay, cinematography and sets.
Who it is for
One hour seventeen minutes, in Vietnamese. A film of adolescent feeling, without action; the war is present only as an absence.
Prizes and reception
Golden Lotus at the eighth Vietnamese festival, with four special prizes, and one of the titles that marked the turning point of the đổi mới.