TIFF 2024: ‘Viet And Nam’ Haunts With Ghosts Old And New

Indescribably bleak, Viet and Nam is as far from a feel-good film as one can imagine. Not to be too flippant, considering this film, directed by Trương Minh Quý on beautiful 16mm, settles deep within our bones. Riddled with anxiety-inducing imagery and a haunting, doomed future for its protagonists, the film sets up a general conceit of what it means to live with ghosts. Or, instead, what happens when your life story is a ghost story in and of itself?

Thi Nga Nguyen and Daniel Viet Tung Le star as two coal miners living in Vietnam. In between bouts of passionate lovemaking, the two dream about better lives awaiting them as they try to formulate a way to escape their seemingly predestined fate. Nam (Thanh Hai Pham) is at the forefront as he continually trains to be smuggled out of the country. Their romance and potential separation are intercut, with Nam helping his mother, who determinedly seeks to find the remains of Nam’s father, who never returned from the war in the 1970s.

And it’s here where two different layers of ghost stories compete. The first is in the form of Nam’s father. The two lovers, plus Nam’s mother and a close friend who has PTSD from the war, work together to find the father’s remains, all of whom have their own motives and desires for closure. Nam’s father is a literal ghost. The nations attempt to rebuild post-war and make their own ghosts in the form of Viêt and Nam—two men who find solace and release through the oppressive, claustrophobic nature of the coal mines.

The direction by Trương Minh Quý and the cinematography from Son Doan craft a spiritual presence from the start. With Under the Skin-style existential darkness, Viet and Nam begins with hushed breaths as the two men take part in an isolated moment of intimacy, liberated by the darkness surrounding them. So much of the film details their willingness to consume one another completely, enthralled and enticed by the other both through sex and easy intimacy. The two are constantly in one another’s space. At one point, Viêt asks Nam how he’s supposed to hear when the latter is gone. And it truly is incomprehensible to imagine one without the other. And that’s where the tragedy starts.

No matter the outcome, Viêt and Nam poise themselves for misery even as they catch one another in brief moments of euphoria. For all their closeness, from the start, there’s the knowledge that Nam plans to leave. But with careful brevity, we see how intrinsically tied the two are. From their carnal exploration of the other’s bodies to the way they perform mundane actions in tandem—taking off their jackets or lifting their cups to their mouths—they’re entirely, heart-achingly in sync.

And yet, as much as we hope to prepare ourselves for inevitable heartache, nothing can console us once the film delivers the blow. Viet and Nam might be one of the most soul-crushing films I’ve seen in a great deal of time because even as we try to fight back against hope, that glimmer of it pushes through. We want them to get their happy ending. Set against a backdrop of a country in constant repair where for every lush frame of greenery comes a rumbling explosion in the background, we root for these two and their youthful love.

The film captures the natural beauty of the landscapes with intriguing framing and patience to hold onto the rolling green forests. The film never luxuriates in that tranquility; instead, it reminds us at every turn that, for all its natural beauty, the country remains inhospitable to Viêt and Nam. We can’t be distracted by the lush, overwhelming greens because we know that the two seek to escape this land. A moment of beauty such as the two, boyish and alive, screaming atop a motorcycle that they crash into ocean waves is burdened by visceral melancholy. We desperately hope these snapshots of their romance could be the final truth.

Towards the film’s start, Nam’s mother asks that he leave the lights on as it allows her to dream easier. In retrospect, what a crushing line for a film about two men who spend their days overwhelmed by darkness. And yet, despite this, they still find respite in the shadowed confines of coal mines. They find one another and ask the other’s names in sheepish flirtation. But there are no lights here for them, and no dreams are easily accessible. Viet and Nam is such a tremendous work of art because it fully understands its tragedy and the inevitability of it all.

Viet and Nam played as part in the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.