At the Height of Summer uses a slow burning and very evolving, developing approach to explore the lives and relations several people share with one another within in the nation of Vietnam. From the untouched, exotic and quite beautiful topical locales of isolated cliff-side spaces; luscious lagoons and the interiors of beach side, water-atop bamboo houses to the cramped and enclosed street-side based cafés of Hanoi complete with small apartments that house those living within close proximity of these streets, the film is a rich piece running on wonderful imagery complete with a number of quietly interesting dramas and incidents all linked to the relationships revolving around half a dozen or so characters progress through throughout. Specficially, the sorts that brothers share with their sisters; sisters with their mothers and partners with each another, in what is one of many of Vietnamese director's Tran Anh Hung's films that I read has garnered acclaim plus acknowledgment.
At the Height of Summer begins with a character by the name of Hai (Hai Ngo) waking up in the morning in the somewhat basic, somewhat enclosed apartment he lives in with his sister Lien (Nu Yên-Khê). With his waking up to a new day comes our own waking up, or entering, or systematic birth, into the text itself as the day dawns and the lives of each of the characters we come to observe begin to make themselves known to us. As Hai goes around to his still dozing sister, the camera changes from a shot of a middling ilk to a closer, and therefore more intimate, composition of Lien; bringing to our attention a more focused or more personal link we may or ought to have with her – consequently more distanced from her brother, something that rings true when later on we realise the film is essentially her story more than it is Hai's. Later on, an author by the name of Kien (Cuong Tran) will feel somewhat resentful towards a man his sister is to marry and the characters of Suong and Khanh complete a threesome of sisters whose lives and relationships with various men links everyone to each other.
Tran Anh Hung seems to be out to capture the love one feels towards certain states just as much he wishes to capture the intimate feelings others feel for one another. The film is both just as respectful and with an eye on one character and her apparent love of being in a state of pregnancy as it is seemingly preoccupied with a group of others and their round-the-calendar acknowledgment of their mother's death date; despite not knowing how she died nor much about her. At the Height of Summer is like that; focusing on feelings, human emotion and that connection one feels towards another human-being of whatever form but with a sweet glance in the direction of other such physicalities and items, and it's complimented by Tran Anh Hung's impressive film-making awareness. The scene in question sees him allow this band of three sisters and one brother a space to themselves in a tea house cut off from the rest of it, epitomised in the physical barrier separating them from everyone else in a curtain that is pulled around slightly behind them as they share this rather personal and intimate moment.
In a remarkable twist of fate, particularly for a film looking at infidelity amongst love and friendship in other fields, arguably the most interesting relationship is between the aforementioned brother and sister; two people whom share close proximity sleeping conditions and would happily go out of one's way in sleeping on the floor if it meant the other remained unperturbed. Hai and Lien wake up to music of a rather Western ilk; the artwork on the wall around their little pad seems unacquainted to the general Vietnamese area; Lien bemoans having to have the same, "traditional" meals in the morning at a local breakfast parlour and later on, after it's revealed Hai works as an extra on numerous films, what is clearly identified as a clichéd or 'classical' scene from a film he's working on is played out in practise between the two of them, is dismissed as such by Lien who states she really rather likes the simplicity and stereotypical nature of this "depature in the rain" sequence due to be played out. In a word or two, these people are not of a more 'traditional' sort given the film's setting and the nature of their border-line lover affair style relationship sees them out of sync with mostly every society in the world.
As someone whom is 'Western' themselves it may seem somewhat typical, indeed narrow minded, to have come away from a Vietnamese film garnering the most out of a somewhat 'Westernised' relationship between two people, or relationship between two people that most strongly represents a rejection of the world in which they live in. But the rest of the film is equally interesting, juxtaposing the locales of said rural beach-side places with the supposed ugliness within another character when he reveals the guilt of what he has left behind in Hanoi; director Tran Anh Hung spreading his focus and study far and wide around his home nation and those that inhabit it, on one occasion providing the announcement of a pregnancy to a backdrop of pretty vegetation and flowers, suggesting a blooming or growing sense that compliments the nature of the announcement. The film is not so much preoccupied with narrative, with whatever story about a cheating husband and the wrongs he comes to learn of coming to occur before concluding, as much as it is interested in the warts and all daily lives of these people not necessarily doing much for specific stretches of time. All of it culminates in a thoroughly nourishing and rather interesting character study.
At the Height of Summer begins with a character by the name of Hai (Hai Ngo) waking up in the morning in the somewhat basic, somewhat enclosed apartment he lives in with his sister Lien (Nu Yên-Khê). With his waking up to a new day comes our own waking up, or entering, or systematic birth, into the text itself as the day dawns and the lives of each of the characters we come to observe begin to make themselves known to us. As Hai goes around to his still dozing sister, the camera changes from a shot of a middling ilk to a closer, and therefore more intimate, composition of Lien; bringing to our attention a more focused or more personal link we may or ought to have with her – consequently more distanced from her brother, something that rings true when later on we realise the film is essentially her story more than it is Hai's. Later on, an author by the name of Kien (Cuong Tran) will feel somewhat resentful towards a man his sister is to marry and the characters of Suong and Khanh complete a threesome of sisters whose lives and relationships with various men links everyone to each other.
Tran Anh Hung seems to be out to capture the love one feels towards certain states just as much he wishes to capture the intimate feelings others feel for one another. The film is both just as respectful and with an eye on one character and her apparent love of being in a state of pregnancy as it is seemingly preoccupied with a group of others and their round-the-calendar acknowledgment of their mother's death date; despite not knowing how she died nor much about her. At the Height of Summer is like that; focusing on feelings, human emotion and that connection one feels towards another human-being of whatever form but with a sweet glance in the direction of other such physicalities and items, and it's complimented by Tran Anh Hung's impressive film-making awareness. The scene in question sees him allow this band of three sisters and one brother a space to themselves in a tea house cut off from the rest of it, epitomised in the physical barrier separating them from everyone else in a curtain that is pulled around slightly behind them as they share this rather personal and intimate moment.
In a remarkable twist of fate, particularly for a film looking at infidelity amongst love and friendship in other fields, arguably the most interesting relationship is between the aforementioned brother and sister; two people whom share close proximity sleeping conditions and would happily go out of one's way in sleeping on the floor if it meant the other remained unperturbed. Hai and Lien wake up to music of a rather Western ilk; the artwork on the wall around their little pad seems unacquainted to the general Vietnamese area; Lien bemoans having to have the same, "traditional" meals in the morning at a local breakfast parlour and later on, after it's revealed Hai works as an extra on numerous films, what is clearly identified as a clichéd or 'classical' scene from a film he's working on is played out in practise between the two of them, is dismissed as such by Lien who states she really rather likes the simplicity and stereotypical nature of this "depature in the rain" sequence due to be played out. In a word or two, these people are not of a more 'traditional' sort given the film's setting and the nature of their border-line lover affair style relationship sees them out of sync with mostly every society in the world.
As someone whom is 'Western' themselves it may seem somewhat typical, indeed narrow minded, to have come away from a Vietnamese film garnering the most out of a somewhat 'Westernised' relationship between two people, or relationship between two people that most strongly represents a rejection of the world in which they live in. But the rest of the film is equally interesting, juxtaposing the locales of said rural beach-side places with the supposed ugliness within another character when he reveals the guilt of what he has left behind in Hanoi; director Tran Anh Hung spreading his focus and study far and wide around his home nation and those that inhabit it, on one occasion providing the announcement of a pregnancy to a backdrop of pretty vegetation and flowers, suggesting a blooming or growing sense that compliments the nature of the announcement. The film is not so much preoccupied with narrative, with whatever story about a cheating husband and the wrongs he comes to learn of coming to occur before concluding, as much as it is interested in the warts and all daily lives of these people not necessarily doing much for specific stretches of time. All of it culminates in a thoroughly nourishing and rather interesting character study.