The Guava House (2000) User Reviews

A Society Unknown to Most of Us

[michaelf · 9/10 · 5 July 2004]

Nhat Minh Dang gives us a look at the complex society that is modern Vietnam. We see a Buddhist society with a Communist government that is beginning to embrace western values -- at least commercial values. All these competing factors have their positive and negative sides, which the writer/director presents with openness and honesty, and through the eyes of a mentally underdeveloped young man working as an artist model. The story centers around his boyhood home and the quava tree which grew outside. The house and the tree both symbolize the history of Vietnam in the 20th century.

For most of us, this is a glimpse of a world most of us do not know -- not to mention a well made film.

a brilliant movie

[morticias_lover · 10/10 · 29 March 2006]

I just saw the movie yesterday and I thought it was brilliant. A true representative of modern Asian culture, unlike all the ''Hero'' and ''House Of Flying Daggers'' crap that is only meant for entertaining Westerners. Being a Westerner myself, I like to watch movies that can help me understand other cultures better, and this one really does the trick.

The main character is a kind-hearted mentally disabled man who fell from a guava tree when he was a young boy, and hurt his head. Soon his mother died and the family had to move away, so he grew up living in memories of their old house and the guava tree he loved so much when he was a child. He works as a model in art school and is taken care of by his sister. He often goes to his old house and eventually he meets the girl who lives there now. They become friends and she invites him to live with her, but her father sends him to a mental institution where he gets frightened by the doctors who treat him violently and loses his memory of shock. His sister realizes that he does not remember anything about their childhood and the guava tree anymore and it breaks her heart. After a while she goes to seek the young girl who lives in their house, only to find out the family had moved away and the guava tree had been removed to get more space in the backyard.