Three Seasons (1999)

Directed by: Tony Bui | 113 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Ngoc Hiep Nguyen, Ngoc Minh, Phat Trieu Hoang, Diem Kieu, Hanh Kieu, Don Duong, Huu Doc Nguyen, Hong Son Le, Ba Quang Nguyen, Huu Su Tran, Duc Hung Luong, Harvey Keitel, Diep Bui, Hoang Trieu , Tran Long, Tuong Trac Bui, Hyunh Kim Hong, Manh Cuong Tran, Lola Guimond, Thach Thi Kim Trang

Tony Bui’s first feature film is a real crowd pleaser. A film with its heart in the right place, with picturesque images of Vietnam, and with a story that has positive elements such as hope and human resilience as final thoughts. And in addition to an insight into an exotic culture, we are also presented with a Western (cult) darling: Harvey Keitel. No wonder the film has won many awards, including three at the Sundance Festival founded by Robert Redford. Yet the film is often a bit too simple or meaningless to really deserve all these accolades. Four different stories are told, which do not have much in common other than that they say something about Vietnam as a country or society. However, the stories are usually not very interesting or satisfactorily developed. Often there is potential and you think that a nice character study is going to follow, but often an unsurprising angle is chosen that has also been treated better and further in other films. In the end, it is mainly the silent observations and technical qualities, such as the beautiful camera work, that manage to keep ‘Three Seasons’ above water.

For example, the story of lotus flower picker Kien An (Ngoc Hiep Nguyen) who provides leper Dao (Manh Cuong Tran) with a sounding board initially seems to be heading for something interesting. The way she is excluded from the group of lotus pickers on the water, for example by not singing along to the song she plays during the picking, promises an interesting investigation into the hierarchy or pecking orders within this culture, but this aspect is already being explored. quickly abandoned in favor of the one-sided story about the pathetic reclusive Dao who helps Kien come out of his shell and stop being afraid of his identity. Perhaps symbolic for the Vietnamese nation, but as a story in itself in fact uninteresting. Especially the quasi-profound streams of thought that Dao shakes up make the whole look unnecessarily pompous and artificial. Fortunately, there are still moments that seem a bit more charming, such as when Kien An tries to sell her flowers in the city and has to deal with competition from sellers of plastic flowers. Although this again is cause for criticism of the changing society (which is eager for quick profit), we are presented with beautiful moments of reflection and subtle acting.

Also Harvey Keitel’s story about the Westerner who wants forgiveness or closure for his “presence” in the country during the war – he fathered a child there – is almost exclusively valuable in a symbolic way. The story itself largely offers us an apathetic or drunken Keitel staring ahead, thinking of his prodigal daughter. When he finally finds her, we learn a little about his regrets and need for reconciliation, but then the narration grinds to a halt. Bui doesn’t seem interested in his daughter’s reaction or further elaboration of the story. A little more fascinating is the story about little boy Woody (Huu Duoc Nguyen); a story that is, if possible, even less than Keitel’s. The boy loses his briefcase with merchandise – lighters, key rings – and spends the rest of the film looking for it. It is not the question of who brought his briefcase that is interesting here, but the awareness of this boy’s distressing living situation. There’s something sad about seeing him peddling his goods in front of the doors of hotels or in shady bars, but when he loses his briefcase, you realize as a viewer that this briefcase is his whole life. He can’t help but run around town and search and ask everywhere. We see him walking through the rain, desperate, and hungry, sitting on a sidewalk. In this last moment, however, a beautiful solidarity and hope appears to shine through, when a girl (Thach Thi Kim Trang) – also a street child – sits down next to Woody and gives him a piece of her bread. A little later we see him with a bunch of other children playing soccer with a can in the pouring rain. Play is essential for children, as it turns out.

The most complete story in ‘Three Seasons’ is that of cyclo driver Hai (Don Duong) who has a crush on the beautiful hooker Lan (Diep Bui). Lan accompanies wealthy clients to their hotels while Hai watches from afar and, from the moment he had to come to her rescue with his pedicab when Lan was chased from a hotel by two men, now nights in front of the hotel where Lan’s ” works” just to be able to take her home afterwards. He immediately fell in love with her and doesn’t care about his status as a cyclo driver or her status as a hooker (as she does). After all, love must be able to conquer all. However? Though it borders on stalking, Hai’s perseverance and belief in love and Lan’s worth as a person is encouraging to watch. He remains convinced that her relative detachment is just a facade, and that there is also a desire on her part for “more”, and for himself. As a spectator you continue to hope for this. In any case, the story is responsible for one of the most attractive scenes of the film, the picturesque scene with the rose petals, which is also the subject of the poster.

In short, ‘Three Seasons’ has become a not without merit, but still a bit too easy collection of stories. The film regularly catches the eye visually and offers beautiful observations of life in Vietnam, but unfortunately leaves something to be desired in terms of content.