Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989) User Reviews

War's impact seen by Vietnamese Eyes

[Akkadis · 7/10 · 12 November 2019]

Organized musically and utilizing a variety of materials ranging from interviews to newsreel footage to diverse literary and critical commentaries on the sound track, the film is quite unique. Trinh's methods of questioning and dismantling the documentary forms that are generally used to confront such a subject are radically conceived, as well as cunningly and delicately employed. Not an easy film, but an unforgettable one.

Brilliant

[angelofhistory · 10/10 · 11 March 2007]

A brilliant, difficult film that repays multiple viewings. It works less by narrative than by image, repetition, and the layering of multiple voices—like poetry, perhaps. An 'experimental' documentary, it raises issues of cultural translation and hybrid identities, and especially the difficulty of representing the experience of 'Vietnamese' women to 'American' audiences. (And who counts as a Vietnamese woman? Are emigrants still Vietnamese? What does it mean to be a woman?) The first part of the film is based on a series of interviews conducted with women in Vietnam. The later part features interviews with the actresses— Vietnamese immigrants to the USA--who have played the interviewees. The reenactments are heavily stylized, and the women speak in English. The later interviews, in the US, are conducted in Vietnamese. Interwoven with the interviews (as often in counterpoint as illustration) are archival footage, historical images, selections from Vietnamese poetry, and reflections on the nature of documentary.

Stuart Klawans, in his review in The Nation, comments, "Keenly intelligent, sensuously multilayered, the film plays on the audience with such assurance that I feel as if, by explaining the method of the interviews, I've given away the plot of a thriller." But this is a thriller, it's one that bears repeated viewings, even after we know how it turns out. He concludes, "Emotionally,. . . Surname Viet Given Name Nam leaves you with an image of the courage and persistent strength of Vietnamese women, not in the terms of propaganda- poster heroics, but on the human level." If you're interested in Vietnamese women, global culture, mediations on exile, or avant-garde cinema, it's well worth seeing.

the worst movie i have ever seen and I've seen some horrible movies

[gojikranz · 1/10 · 30 January 2007]

I'm not sure really where to begin on this film. we just watched it in a womens studies class and I think I'm bald now cause I pulled out all my hair while watching it. the film would seem to be about women's life in Vietnam but it can't seem to understand that when people watch a movie they need to understand what is being said to comprehend it. actually it seems to know this very well teasing the viewer with subtitles that come on after the Vietnamese women has been speaking in unintelligible English but then taking the subtitle away before you can finish reading it so you are lost as to where the hard to understand English is and you can't remember what you read cause you were straining to read it so fast. then a strange poem will have lyrics written underneath the screen further distracting you from the broken English that you are trying to hear. then another Vietnamese women will start saying something at the same time so you have three things to try and listen/read to but you can't understand any of it so you are left to cry at the bitterness of human existence. maybe that was the filmmakers intention if so why does she hate people so much? that would make a much more interesting film. after a long series of these interviews we are treated to more jovial Vietnamese women talking about more Vietnamese women, they are more easy to understand but as a viewer we are already so lost we have no idea why we should care that this girl wants to be considered as a fruit. All I got out of the film was that Vietnamese treat their women bad, and I really didn't need a film to tell me that. I kinda knew it already. My one analysis as for the deeper meaning of this movie is that maybe by showing us that Vietnamese women can't be understood when they speak in English she is trying to say that Vietnamese filmmakers cannot be understood when they make English films. but it seems the only solution to this problem is that she does not make anymore films and this would be a wonderful solution to the problem. I never thought I could hate film as much as this one so thank you for showing me the depths of this putrid world and letting me breath deep its horrid scent. enjoy everyone.

one of the best movies i've ever seen

[blueenvelope · 10/10 · 21 September 2009]

"Surname Viet, Given Name Nam" is a rare document/reenactment in that it captures the voices of southern Vietnamese women at a time when the Vietnamese nation-state was undergoing rapid political-economic transformation that worked in different ways to structurally include and exclude, connect and separate, women--apparently, increasingly differentiating "persons" according to gendered terms. There are few records of the southern Vietnamese woman's perspective, especially in English. What is notable to me about the English renderings is that they require the viewer/listener to be active, to move into the text as one might in a transnational setting where communication with the speaker is valued, recognizing even still the ways this kind of action privileges the use of English. With such an acknowledgment, this film becomes Trinh's--and her intervewee/actors'--gift of translation to the rest of us.

Beautiful

[nobodyshippy · 10/10 · 7 November 2008]

This movie is not for those looking for the glossy, dumbed-down Hollywood documentary- if that's what you want, pass this and go to Michael Moore, choose one of his movies where the nice man will tell you what to think.

"Surname Viet Given Name Nam" is an intricate, beautiful tapestry of a film that requires you to pay complete attention to the screen in order to fully appreciate it. It can be difficult to understand at times because some of the Vietnamese women speak with thick accents. However, if the viewer simply listens to them, eventually the individual cadences of their voices fall into place and what they are saying becomes understandable. The scenes are layered, not simply documentary-style face-and-scene shots but tight, personal angles. The scene might begin with a close up of a woman's face, however the shot travels to take in her hands twisting and gesturing or her feet shuffling as she speaks. On top of this are occasional blocks of text-subtitles and occasionally, a song mixing with the woman's words intentionally obscuring her reality with the wistful, fairy-tale like lyrics. So as not to spoil the movie, I'll just say that the two halves of it contrast beautifully- black & white and colour, Vietnam and America, past and present. This film is amazing, don't let the racist, West-centric review for this movie fool you. Watch is with an open mind and heart and you'll do fine.