ADRIFT DATE: WEDNESDAY, MAY 5 TIME: 7:00 PM VENUE: DWNTN BUY TICKETS

ADRIFT (Choi Voi)
(Vietnam, 2009) Dir.: Thac Chuyen Bui; Scr.: Phan Dang Di
Video (originated on 35mm), 110 min., color, narrative, in Vietnamese w/ E.S.

ADRIFT begins at a wedding, life’s intersection when a person relinquishes their youthful past and takes on the promise of marital bliss. A perfect beginning to Bui Thac Chuyen’s seductive and atmospheric rumination on sexual awakening as modern day Vietnam enters a social and moral crossroad. It is Hai and Duyen’s wedding. We first see Duyen attempting to remove her wedding dress alone as her groom prefers to spend his wedding night getting passed-out drunk at the reception. Hai is a baby faced taxi driver, two years her junior and a virginal mama’s boy. Nothing is consummated this night and it begins to seem like it never will. After once again being rejected by Hai, Duyen seeks some solace with her best friend Cam, a complicated and cynical writer who has veiled romantic feelings for Duyen. There, Duyen discloses to Cam her approach to her marriage and her life that “if you don’t expect too much then everything is simple.” It is an old world perspective, echoed by Hai’s domineering mother who chides “girls shouldn’t ask for too much. You’ll get spoiled.”

Soon, this simple life begins to take some twists and Duyen’s modest expectations begin to change. Through Cam, Duyen meets Tho, a lusty Lothario who sparks something in Duyen that puts her life in a tailspin. Meanwhile Hai befriends a teenage girl who lives in the flat downstairs with her father, further complicating this slowly weaving web of repressed desires and carnal angst. Instead of using broad dramatic strokes to portray the turbulent changes in the character’s lives, director Chuyen gently uses subtle pinpoint dabs.

The film’s hypnotic rhythm belies its meditative mood. The mosaic bathroom glass obscuring the moving figures on either side, a song on the car radio, a stroll on the streets of Hanoi, even a boiling pot of water carried by Duyen and Cam’s mother appears like dance. The restraint represents the cautious passage into a societies changing ideals. Even intimate erotic moments come at a guise of a foot massage or a shared steam bath under an ornate sheet. ADRIFT speaks of how, at this point in time, where does one’s desires take anchor. What takes precedence, antiquated social mores that no longer seem to ballast the lives of 21st century Vietnam or the personal yearnings of an individual seeking a chance at true happiness.
— Joel Quizon

ADRIFT is co-presented by the Global Film Initiative and is part of the 2010 Global lens film series. For more information visit www.globalfilm.org.

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COMMUNITY CO-PRESENTER: Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association; DIVA: Diverse and Inclusive Visionary Artists; UCLA Vietnamese Language & Culture