The anticipated film adaptation of Canadian author Kim Thuy’s novel portrays a nuanced take on the Vietnam War
By John Vo
Tinh (Chloé Djandji) in a promotional still for Ru (Courtesy of TIFF)
To a large population of the world, the sound and sight of rushing waters have connotations of tranquillity and zen. The continuous ebbs and flow of water in lakes and rivers is a metaphor for overcoming the turbulent changes faced in our lives. It is when we look at the Vietnamese diaspora that the perception of large bodies of water drastically transforms into something ambiguous. This unique experience is embodied in the film adaptation of Kim Thuy’s debut novel Ru.
Directed by Charles-Oliver Michaud, the film premiered at the 48th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 13th, a number Thuy said is lucky in the preamble before the screening. (We’ll get back to the theme of luck later.) Thuy is an award-winning and celebrated Vietnamese-Canadian author and graduate of the Université de Montréal. She has written works such as Man (2013), Em (2020) and Ru (2009), the latter having won the Governor General's Award for French-language fiction in 2010.
Looking through Thuy’s bibliography, it becomes clear how deeply ingrained her Vietnamese identity is in her works. When discussing the film with director Michaud, Thuy said she asked him to capture the heart and thematic line of her novel while allowing him to utilize his own vision for the on-screen adaptation. This collaborative effort would create a film that weaves the core parts of Thuy’s narrative and themes with Michaud’s detailed filmmaking.
Opening with the house of our protagonist Tinh (Chloé Djandji) in Vietnam with her family, the quaint and emanating warmth is a representation of a middle-class Vietnamese home in the 1970s. It is in this brief but fleeting moment that Tinh, her family and the audience will feel truly safe.
During the Vietnam War, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, fell to the communist party of the North. Fearing for their lives under the new communist regime, over 140,000 people fled the country by various treacherous methods. Soon after, Canada announced the country would welcome South Vietnamese refugees and provide them an opportunity to start anew.
On the way to Quebec, where the story will take place, the characters see the glistening snow for the first time. As they do, the camera work and actors’ expressions convey the bewilderment of the mysterious white flakes falling from the sky. Even though most Canadians in the audience have seen snow first-hand, the intricate filmmaking techniques allow us to see through the curious lens of the family. Throughout the film, Michaud chooses to take a subtler approach, straying away from flashy cuts or special effects. In moments where the camera lingers on the subjects, the characters' nuanced reactions to the world around them become prominent. The subdued use of a background score and filmmaking techniques fit the understated tone the film is going for.
At the heart of Ru is the story that we’ve seen told and retold: a family’s journey of uprooting their entire livelihoods to move to a new country. This version opts to depict the Vietnamese refugee experience during and after The Vietnam War.
A main aspect of this experience is the internal conflict the family faces of choosing to reminisce on the country that was once home versus attempting to keep persevering in life without being stuck in the past. The film's usage of both Vietnamese and French languages exemplifies the thematic relevance as the characters try to assimilate into Quebec. The title of the novel and film itself alludes to this core struggle. “Ru” in French can mean a stream or a flow of money, tears or blood while in Vietnamese, the word means “cradle” or “lullaby.” Thuy’s novel and film try to create an intersection between the language of her native homeland and the language she has adopted in Canada.
Based on her family's and her own experiences immigrating to Canada as refugees, Thuy’s characters are all provided moments where their deep-seated fears and motivations become prevalent. Dinh’s father’s (Jean Bui) determination to find work and her mother’s (Chantal Thuy) stern and harsh critiques of her daughter’s attentiveness to school stem from the burdening weight of losing financial and emotional stability. For the family and the many other Vietnamese expats, life has been riddled with tumultuous obstacles.
The journey of coming to Canada is revealed in a select amount of scenes that show the harrowing reality. Described as “boat people,” Vietnamese refugees were crammed into boats on their way to salvation. With no room to move, lack of proper food and the looming threat of sinking or being murdered by pirates, on many of these boat people feared for their lives. Arriving at an Indonesian refugee camp, conditions were not better. These scenes provide much-needed context for the stakes and sacrifices her parents make for the safety of their children. Dinh’s parents' actions would not be considered traditional “perfect parenting” but many immigrant audiences can resonate with the sacrifices and trauma their parents endured. Dinh being perceptive about the suppressed pain her parents try so desperately to hide from her shows how rapidly she’s had to mature at such a young age.
The film is anchored by Chloé Djandji’s remarkable performance as Dinh. Rather than having tons of dialogue or a moment of grandiose emotions (imagine Daniel Day-Lewis's performance from There Will Be Blood), her role as the eldest daughter and a girl trying to find her place in—what is to her—a strange world requires a subtlety realistic to how most young kids act. She doesn’t understand the Quebecois French she’s hearing, everything around her is unfamiliar to Vietnam and she’s endured things no child should ever experience. For her first credited on-screen role, Djandji’s performance captures the complex emotions needed to solidify the overarching themes.
Through all of the people they meet in Quebec and their strong familial bond, the story of Dinh and her family is, at its core, a shining coming-of-age story. Throughout this review, the concept of layered characters and their backstories has been brought up frequently. A quick scan of all existing films in the West will make one realize that Vietnamese representation in film, especially ones set during the Vietnam War, has been relegated to solely one thing: “the enemy.”
Films like The Deer Hunter and Full Metal Jacket are framed around the point-of-view of white Americans, which consequently leads to the “opposing enemy” of Vietnamese people being portrayed as blood-thirsty antagonists. It isn’t that these films are not allowed to portray soldiers in this light, but the consistent pattern of reducing the Vietnamese diaspora to nothing but obstacles distracts from the brutality real refugees faced during the war. In the slew of films about the Vietnam War, Ru’s willingness to illustrate the struggles and dreams of a Vietnamese Canadian family learning to adapt is monumental.
Instead of antagonizing a certain side of the war, the film opts to highlight the ever-changing emotional states the family faces. The best way to describe the film’s approach to its characters is compassionate. From the French-Canadian family who looks out for Dinh’s family to the elderly Vietnamese man who provides words of wisdom for our lead character, we’re shown the importance of how building community can heal trauma.
At the premiere of the film, Thuy talked about her connection to the idea of luck. The idea that it was luck that allowed her to write a book about her experiences. The idea that it was lucky to bring a film adaptation of that book to life. Most importantly, Thuy believes that luck brought her family safely to Canada and allowed them to re-establish the stability they feared was long gone. A story about a young girl and her family overcoming hardship has become one of the most heart-warming and timely films of the year.
Ru is slated to release in cinemas later this year. For more information on the novel and Kim Thuy, click the link to her website.