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Audio Format: DD 2.0
Video Format: Widescreen 1.85:1 (Anamorphic)
Languages: VIETNAMESE
Subtitles: English, Chinese (T)
Region Code: 3
Year Made: 2006
Running Time: 143
Release Date: 11/23/2007
The wispy fabric of the traditional ao dai worn by Vietnamese women is the sturdy material holding "The White Silk Dress" together. Saga spanning the years 1954-66 gets off to a rocky start but comes home strong as it charts the catastrophic effect of war on a peasant family. U.S. trained commercials and musicvideo director Huynh Luu makes a mostly promising feature bow here with this Pusan world preem.
Setting is picturesque town of Ha Dong in central Vietnam, immediately prior to the collapse of French colonial rule. Working for the local puppet governor, hunchback Gu (Nguyen Khanh Quoc) has eyes for servant girl Dau (Trong Anh Ngoc). The feeling's mutual, but without the means to marry in the accepted sense, Gu gives his "bride" the precious ao dai he's been carrying since childhood. Betrothed in their own eyes, the couple take flight in the aftermath of his employer's assassination and subsequent French reprisals.
Shifting somewhat awkwardly through the following dozen years, narrative finally settles down in the mid-'60s with the couple making an unsustainable living as mussel sellers in the Southern seaside town of Hoi An. Desperate to give her daughters the ao dais required to attend school, Dau turns to part-time work as a wet nurse. In scenes that are not easily forgotten, her breasts are suckled not by a baby but by a sickly old rich man in his bizarre, purpose-built chamber.
Proceedings pick up markedly once the husband discovers his wife's secret means of raising money. Weaving the domestic disharmony and gradual encroachment of combat into the area leads to a powerhouse set-piece in which the local school comes under aerial fire. In editing rhythm and shot composition, sequence immediately recalls the seaside village bombardment in "Apocalypse Now," but here the camera lingers far longer, and to deeply moving effect, in the devastating wake. At packed screening caught, most audience members were in tears.
With a luminous central perf by "Bride of Silence" star Trong Anh Ngoc as the resilient Dau, and utterly charming turns by the youngsters playing her spirited daughters, pic eventually resonates as a tribute to the suffering and generosity of Vietnamese women symbolized by the ao dai's cultural significance.
An impoverished wife and mother desperate to provide her daughters with the ao dais' (a traditional tunic slit down the sides and worn over pants) required to attend school takes on a most non-traditional part-time job in director Huynh Luu's melancholy period drama. French colonial rule on Vietnam is on the verge of collapse, and hunchback servant Gu (Nguyen Khanh Quoc), who works for the puppet governor, longs to be wed servant girl Dau (Trong Anh Ngoc). Though the pair lacks the traditional means to marry, Gu bequeaths his love with the ao dai he has carried since childhood and the pair forms a faithful union. When Gu's master is assassinated, the pair quickly flees and relocates to the seaside village of Hoi An.
Twelve years later Gu and Dau have started a family. Though the couple barely makes enough money to sustain themselves, much less two daughters, Dau is determined to ensure that her girls have proper ao dai's by the time they reach school age. In order to raise the finds needed to make her dream a reality, Dau accepts a part time position as a wet nurse to a wealthy old man without telling her husband. Later, when Gu finds out what his wife has been doing to earn money and the bombs fall ever closer to their home, rising tensions in the once happy household mirror an encroaching threat that will soon lead to tragedy for all involved.
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