If you have seen and liked very much (as I did) The Green Papaya Fragrance /L'Odeur de la Papaye verte, 1993,(Caméra d'Or at Cannes Festival for the Best First Film, French Academy Award for Best First Film, 1994 and nominated at the Oscars), young French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Huong's first film and big hit (he was born in France after his parents had left Vietnam in the 1970's), you will enjoy A la verticale de l'ete. Even if this third film may be not be seen as perfect as his first one, it nevertheless has a big attractiveness and an often irresistible beauty (his second film, Cyclo, in spite of its Golden Lion Award at Venice Festival, was a critical and commercial flop). In this new film, the director's fascination for food is obvious again. Food as it is and as it must be prepared (more than its ingestion or taste)... Tran Anh Hung sayed in interviews that he tried to let his "female side" speak. He did it well actually. And this achievement gives the three sisters beautiful characters and portraits (in the same way than Mui's, the young then older girl in L'Odeur de la Papaye verte). Let's say right away that the sisters are acted by three excellent and beautiful actresses. The close-ups on their faces, the way Tran shoots Lien's languorous waking-ups and her slow body-stretchings in her brother's bed where she finds herself every morning "without knowing how" or "just because she was cold at night" she says, all those shots are marvellously sensual ! The alternation between contrast and fusion in colour and shades, sometimes pastel and sometimes bright, the music and the songs (some Lou Reed's old classic ballads lulling Lien's waking-ups, and beautiful scores by Ton That Tiet) add to this film's aestheticism. A LA VERTICALE DE L'ETE was first screened at the 2000 Cannes International Film Festival. A worth seeing film !
Review of The Vertical Ray of the Sun
