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Review | Cannes 2024: Viet and Nam movie review – brave Vietnamese gay drama paints abstract picture of a nation’s trauma

  • Minh Quy Truong’s third film follows two gay Vietnamese miners, one of whom plans to be smuggled to the West – a nod to 39 refugees who suffocated in a UK truck
  • Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, this opaque, claustrophobic movie of moments features poignant imagery alluding to the devastation of war, 9/11 and more

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A still from Viet and Nam, directed by Minh Quy Truong, and starring Duy Bao Dinh Dao and Thanh Hai Pham.

3/5 stars

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Viet and Nam, the third feature by Vietnamese filmmaker Minh Quy Truong (The Tree House, 2019), which had its premiere in the Cannes festival’s Un Certain Regard section, is an abstract, opaque drama.

While hardly a film that feels ripped from the headlines, it comes inspired by a real-life incident in 2019. A container on the back of a truck in Essex, England, was found to contain the bodies of 39 Vietnamese refugees who had suffocated inside.

Shot on 16mm film, which lends the film a lovely, worn-in feel, Viet and Nam begins with a close-up of two men talking tenderly. Viet (Duy Bao Dinh Dao) and Nam (Thanh Hai Pham) are coal miners, working 300 metres (1,000 feet) below ground in claustrophobic conditions.

Viet and Nam new clip official - Cannes Film Festival 2024 (1/3)

It immediately becomes clear there is a sexual attraction between the two men, but talk turns to Nam’s plan: he wants to escape his bleak existence by arranging to have himself smuggled to the West. “You’re crazy,” comes the reply.

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Throughout, information is drip fed to the viewer. At one point, as the miners descend below ground in a creaking lift, they discuss the 9/11 attacks, suggesting that the scene takes place in 2001.

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