Me and Trinh – Review, movie reviews, news… latest

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‘You and Trinh’ reveal the love story of Trinh Cong Son and a Japanese schoolgirl

In theaters after more than a year of delay due to the epidemic, Me and Trinh (Director Phan Gia Nhat Linh) is one of the most anticipated film projects of the year. With an announced budget of VND 50 billion, the work brings together a powerful cast of many generations, from Tran Luc – the middle-aged Trinh Cong Son – to Avin Lu (a young musician) and past lovers. his life. The movie was released in two versions at the same time with different lengths. The work is 136 minutes long, recreating the musician’s life in the 1950s-1990s. Trinh Cong Son 95 minutes long, focusing on the musician’s youth with youthful love affairs.

The film has a narrative style interwoven between the present and the past, starting with the event that Trinh Cong Son first met a Japanese schoolgirl Michiko Yoshii (played by Nakatani Akari) in the late 1980s. Pursuing a master’s thesis on music Against the war, she went to Vietnam to learn about the life and talented musician. From Trinh Cong Son’s flashback, each layer of memories is unfolded, reviving a dreamy time with the muses. In the present, he and Michiko also have a vibration due to the sympathies in music.

The work is a rare Vietnamese film recently that excels in image thanks to careful investment. Choosing a 4:3 frame, the film reproduces a variety and vividly in terms of space and context, stretching from Hue, Da Lat to Saigon. At the beginning of the film, from Michiko’s perspective, Ho Chi Minh City of the early 1990s is depicted through the silhouettes of the City Theater, Ben Thanh Market, floating restaurants on Bach Dang Wharf, Independence Palace… Back to the 1960s , Trinh guard, Trang Tien bridge… bold colors of nostalgia.

At the stage when the musician went to Da Lat and met Khanh Ly, Tung cafe was carefully restored, from window frames to signs and traffic signs. When he taught at B’lao (Lam Dong), the simple thatched-roof school scene between the mountains and hills was accentuated by grand shots. The director also focused on fine art details in props, from train tickets, envelopes, memorabilia boxes to time-stained music sheets.

The scene contributes to lead the viewer into the smooth emotional arc of the love story of Trinh and the Diem Xua and Dao Anh. The director’s image processing style sometimes follows Trinh’s lyrics, like the scene where the musician quickly pulls out cigarette wrappers to compose. diễm old in the middle of the scene “it’s still raining on the old tower floor”. The slow-motion shots describe “the phoenix road is blind with no entrance”, or the transformation is visualized “the color of the sun or the color of your eyes” when taking a close-up of Dao Anh’s face.

Music – through Duc Tri’s hands – becomes the soul of the work. Nearly 40 typical Trinh songs were selected to recall each stage of the musician’s journey. The music is sometimes sounded directly through the actors’ singing, when it is heard from vinyl records and radio stations. Through the voice of Bui Lan Huong (as Khanh Ly), Nhat Linh (as Thanh Thuy), and Avin Lu, Trinh Cong Son’s teenage years were lifted up. Remixes that focus on roughness to convey the spirit of contemporary music, such as Summer white, Sun glass, Wet eyes…

At times, pieces of music without lyrics sounded like a hint. Like the scene where Khanh Ly talked to Trinh Cong Son after decades of separation, this article Do you remember or did you forget? slowly, reminiscent of a distant past. When a musician suffers from a past love, the melody Long distance love gently pat the character.

In terms of acting, the “Em” line – Trinh Cong Son’s muses – makes a stronger impression than the pair of actors playing the musician. Bui Lan Huong surprised when she transformed into Khanh Ly in the cinematic lane. She did not try to force herself to recreate a female version of the singer like in real life, but installed her own features. Through the scene of meeting Trinh Cong Son for the first time, viewers understand more about a careless, somewhat closed Khanh Ly when she was a “black” Mai. Lan Huong’s acting style both creates natural laughter and evokes sympathy with the emotional content of “a girl with two children”.

Hoang Ha is also a brilliant discovery of the director by choosing the right role. Hoang Ha’s Dao Anh image creates sympathy with a crooked smile, faltering and shy look. Michiko – through Nakatani Akari’s performance – is pure and full of energy. The Japanese actor made his mark with a musical dance scene, reminiscent of the scene of the two main characters in the work La la land (2016).

Tran Luc and Avin Lu stopped at the shoulder level. Trinh Cong Son in his youth appeared as a scholar, a romantic, somewhat naive, infatuated with his lovers. Avin Lu’s steady, slow voice helps convey love letters written to Dao Anh, but not vibrant enough to bring out the innermost feelings in the climax. Tran Luc paints a pompous Trinh Cong Son in middle age. However, the loneliness of the musician when “left by the music” – as the character admits in the movie – has not been portrayed deeply enough by the actor to create sympathy.

With a duration of 136 minutes, the script embraces many details. The director strives to create three musician portraits at the same time: experiencing life in middle age, passionate in youth, and loving peace in the midst of bombs. However, the story lines are not exploited carefully enough, the constant switching makes the story in the middle. In particular, the anti-war music route only stops at a brief overview, has not yet delved into the composing process, although a bunch of songs Yellow skin is the new segment that brings Trinh Cong Son’s name to the peak of the contemporary era.

The old Dao Anh (played by Pham Quynh Anh) was hastily integrated, not enough to push emotions even in the climax of the work. The end of the film also shows the director’s awkwardness in handling the ending to close a character’s life, opening another chapter with a new muse.

Mai Nhat