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Portrayed with an entrancing hush by the actors Duy Bao Dinh Dao and Pham Thanh Hai, Viet and Nam are coal miners \u2014 and lovers. They are also the title characters in \u201cViet and Nam,\u201d the director Truong Minh Quy\u2019s haunting, meticulously paced drama set in Vietnam in 2001.<\/p>\n
If you surmise Quy is up to something with these two names, you\u2019re right. From its start in the blackness of a mine shaft to an indelible image of a shipping crate adrift, the movie meditates on juxtapositions, among them: South and North, the public and the private, staying and going, darkness and light, mothers and fathers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Early on, as a television station broadcasts the names of the Vietnam War\u2019s still-missing soldiers, Nam and his mother, Hoa (Nguyen Thi Nga), putter around their home. Count the two among the families still hoping to find their loved ones\u2019 unmarked graves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
While Nam, Hoa, Ba (Le Viet Tung), who fought alongside Nam\u2019s father and carries a secret, and Viet travel south to find the burial site, Nam is also making plans to leave Vietnam. His impending departure injects another kind of melancholy into the picture. (The film was banned in Vietnam for what censors saw as its dark portrayal of the country.)<\/p>\n
Quy treats the love affair between Viet and Nam with exquisite tenderness. One of the movie\u2019s scenes \u2014 startling for its frankness but also its visual beauty \u2014 finds the men reclined in the dark of the mine. The film makes clear that even though Nam and Viet must be wary, they are also achingly in love.<\/p>\n
Viet and Nam<\/strong>
Not rated. In Vietnamese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 9 minutes. In theaters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n