Cyclo and Vibrant Urban Space in Modern Vietnam - Essay Example

Lan Duong MCS 167/ AST 187 06 June Cyclo and Vibrant Urban Space in Modern Vietnam The second half of the twentieth century was a time of decolonization for a great number of Asian nations and Vietnam was no exception. Unfortunately, the process of decolonization in Vietnam was marked with a long bloody war that resulted in the establishment of a communist regime and made country sink into degradation for years to come. When Vietnamese government decided to reform the economical system and shift to capitalism, the transition turned out to be quite painful and caused much turmoil. A standout Vietnamese film director, Tran Anh Hung, managed to create a vivid picture of big city life in Vietnam during the aforementioned period of early 90s in his award-winning movie, Cyclo. Tran Anh Hungs brilliant film exposes to light how poverty and inexorable pressure of robber capitalism in high-crime area make ordinary people face ethical dilemma and experience problem of choice in a vibrant urban environment of modern Vietnam. Tran Anh Hungs Cyclo is a sophisticated poetic tale of Ho Chi Minh City. It opens the door to a gloomy world of turbulent 90s in the Vietnams largest city, where misery runs in the family from generation to generation and hellish toil does not mean decent life. The movie focuses on times of so-called "doi moi" or market liberalization in Vietnam, when the government of the country took measures to make a transition from a command economy to a market-driven economical system of Western type (Narkunas 148), which was a huge challenge for the nation. During these transition times portrayed in the movie the corruption of state apparatus and hyperinflation of national currency were a commonplace, while unemployment and crime rates soared and caused social unrest in big cities. A great number of Ho Chi Minh City inhabitants were foredoomed to be trapped in a vicious circle of hard poverty and moral decadence, incoming crime waves and abrupt eruptions of street violence, gender bias and hopeless lack of opportunities for younger generation. The protagonists of the movie represent the lower class of Vietnamese society that struggles hard to escape from grasp of misery. Each of them makes morally questionable choices all the way down in hope for better life. However, despite the fact all of the protagonists are tangled in a shady business, they are more to be pitied than censured. The story is told in a somewhat dismal strain. Its chronological narration is far from having a linear progression and often intermingles with colorful surrealistic scenes. The film is rich with vivid imagery, when it feels like time stops for a while and characters plunge into a dream-like poetic world that has nothing to do with their gloomy daily routine. The movie contains three intertwined storylines of three young Vietnamese people. The first one is an eighteen-year old boy who is forced to work hard by driving a rickshaw everyday in order to support his family of three: his grandfather, elder and younger sisters. His father was a rickshaw driver himself just like his son, but he died due to a fatal traffic accident when his rickshaw was hit by a truck. Although the father wanted to see his son having decent life without the need to work as hard as he used to, his orphaned boy had to start driving rickshaw to earn for a living just like his father did. The boy is involved in self-talk with his deceased father since the first scenes of the movie, thinks about him a lot and sees him in his dreams at times and it gives him strength to overcome the hardships he is exposed to. After a long and tiresome working day he rides back home to the slums picking up his feeble old grandfather on the way. His grandfather pumps up bicycle wheels every day in order to earn a dime and lighten the burden of his grandchildren. His young beautiful sister, who is another protagonist of the story, is always waiting for the men at home with a shy supper. She decides to leave housekeeping and start working as a prostitute, when her brother gets in trouble. She falls in love with her pimp, who is the third key character of the movie. Just like her he has to do what he does not want to day after day. Despite being the leader of one of the city gangs he is also a poet, who looks at his life with brooding eyes of a philosopher. He does his best to keep everything bottled up and does not show his emotions. Every time he feels emotional stress, his nose starts bleeding. It seems that he too has fallen in love with the boys sister. He takes her to dinner in the house where his mother and father live. His father calls his girlfriend a slut and then beats his grown-up son with a bamboo stick because he is ashamed of the way his son earns money and does not want to see his own son in his house. Both poets mother and his girlfriend stare blankly at the scene, which adds up to the patriarchal atmosphere of the house and Vietnamese society at large. Furthermore, although the poet seems to love his girlfriend he still makes her work as a prostitute and she does nothing to change the situation in deference to her mans will. What makes all of the three protagonists similar is the burning sense of justice and readiness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their families. A crowded and turbulent Ho Chi Minh City with its merciless rules is an embodiment of some impersonal force that breaks the will of good people who are forced to do what they dont want to do because life fails to offer them any other alternatives. The directors critique seems to put the blame for the way good people go bad on the economic system of capitalism that post-communist Vietnam plunges into, when the self-centered minority of society stinks with wealth neglecting all the rules, while the absolute majority struggles day after day and year after year just to make ends meet. On the other hand it is fascinating how the boy, his two sisters and their grandfather reconcile reality and support each other despite all hardships that the monotonous life of their small poor family is full of. Their true grit shines through the hopeless poverty of slums with a great power of human spirit. At some point it seems that the Tran Anh Hungs film is going to become yet another classical story of moral courage that makes the difference and helps all the dreams come true. Whether consciously or not but the director of the movie tempts audience with a delusion, which inspires a vague feeling that it is only a matter of time when diligence and commitment pay off in spades. But, fortunately or unfortunately, it just does not work this way in Tran Anh Hungs world. The protagonists are forced to go through numerous hardships, injustice and suffering along the way, and as the story unfolds the bitter end seems almost inevitable for most of them. Some of the main characters fail to make it to the end of the film, while the rest are lucky to just get back to the point, which the story had started with, and reunite with their family. The movie starts with the scene showing the boy riding his rickshaw with a voiceover of his deceased father on the background, which lets the audience know how badly the father wanted his son to take another path and never start riding cyclo for living. The boy seems to keep in mind his fathers words and applies for a governmental loan in attempt to change his life. But soon his rickshaw gets stolen and he is forced to join the gang led by the aforementioned poet in order to reimburse the loss to his lady boss. Soon the day comes and he goes on an errand. When he rides a rickshaw transporting drugs stuffed in pork meat, policemen stop him and start inspecting his baggage. He sails close to the wind but is saved from inevitable arrest when the sudden street fight between the gangs burst out on the other side of the road and distracts policemen. The truck, which is going by, hits the rickshaw of another man. It may be no accident that the truck hits the rickshaw driver the same way it once had hit the boys father. He falls dead on the boys cyclo and steeps pork meat in blood. Such a picturesque, yet disgusting, scene might be an allusion demonstrating how low the price of human life is in the modern society, where pork meat stuffed with costly drugs value way more than a poor man. Nobody cares about his life, just like nobody really cared about another man hit by the truck, namely the protagonists father. When he died, his kids left all alone without a breadwinner but the government did nothing to fix the situation and support the family in need. This social injustice led the boy to the gang and he escaped prison only by a strange confluence of circumstances. There is some dream-like feel in the whole scene. The director uses jarring music in the scene when the dead body falls on the boys rickshaw. The music, combined with the boys scared face in a close up, amps up the tension of the moment. The shooting angle changes abruptly and pans down on the rickshaw with pork meat and dead body lying on it. The next close up shows the breathless body of the man hit by the truck. He is lying still on the boys rickshaw for a moment as the non-diagetic music turns louder. Suddenly the dead man starts bleeding and quickly steeping the pork meat with dark red blood. The way he bleeds and the look of his thick blood is quite unnatural. The next moment the boy wakes up screaming "father". Such quick sequence of shots aims at confusing the audience and make spectators think for a spell that the whole scene was a boys nightmare and did not happen in reality. Nevertheless, although some scenes might look surreal at times, the director manages to make audience understand that everything is real and all the nightmarish scenes that protagonists find themselves in from time to time are inalienable parts of their life, however weird these scenes may look like. It must be noted that at times the rich imagery of Tran Anh Hungs directors style manages to articulate certain messages within the framework of some scenes without even verbalizing. Thus, the scene that takes place in the mellow light of the night club, where the poet and the boys sister came to in order to meet the client, does not contain any throw lines at all. While the boys sister is dancing on the club dance floor with metal handcuffs fastened to one of her wrists and casting alluring glances at the client. The camera glides along her dancing body. Nobody talks. The poet appears sad and looks at the client jealously. The tension within the framework of this triangle builds up with the help of close-ups that move rapidly from the clients face to that of the poets. It is probably the first time in the movie when the poet fails to conceal what he really feels. The song that sounds in this scene is titled as Creep. It speaks louder than words. On the one hand it is performed by the British band called Radiohead, which is one of the most popular rock bands in the world. That is a consideration that draws attention of the audience to the spirit of times, namely the early 90s, when once isolated communist society started becoming more open to the world according to the new policy that the Vietnamese government, which it began to implement since 1986 (Norindr 82). On the other hand, this song manages to expose the inner emotion of the poet, who loves his girlfriend but has to share her with other men. All in all, the award-winning drama directed by standout Vietnamese master, Tran Anh Hung, is a multilayered art work that has managed to grasp the intellectual, moral and cultural climate of the modern Vietnamese society, represent truly the aesthetics of vibrant urban space of one of the largest cities in Vietnam and colorfully run the gamut of the protagonists emotions. Works Cited Narkunas, J. Paul. "Street Walking in the Cinema of the City: Capital Flows through Saigon". Cinema and the City: Film Urban Societies. Eds. Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2001. 147-157. Print. Norindr, Panivong. "Aestheticing Urban Space: Modernity in Postcolonial Saigon and Hanoi". Fall 41.3 (2001): 72-87. Print. Read More