Nhà Cây

Steep green hills, winding streets thick with fog, caves inscribed by recent human history. The stories told in this film reverberate in these mysterious landscapes, left unrecounted for so long, now coming across like an echo, from far away and almost faded to nothing. Nhà Cây uses associative montage to form these visual impressions and fragmented stories into a poetic narrative that takes shape imperceptibly. It’s the loss of home that is being narrated in this melancholy cycle of images, sometimes expressed visually via negative film, recalling the ghosts of the past in Vietnam. The story of a man and his son who vanished into the woods during the war and lived there for 40 years in total isolation until they were forced back to civilization. The story of the Ruc people, who used to live in caves and find nourishment in nature, before being resettled in houses as rice farmers promised a leap forward of 1000 years. Or the story of the once-prominent singer Thai Tanh, who was banned from performing in 1975 and exiled to the US. Director Truong Minh Quy interweaves these stories with a fictional trip to Mars. The noises, bubbling sounds, and beeps contribute to a feeling of deep-rooted alienation, of losing ground in time and space, that does not dissipate even when the film is over. (Viennale)