Co Dau Dai Chien (Angry Brides)

When we were visiting our favourite DVD shop in Cabramatta recently the owner slipped an extra disc into our bag for free. "You'll love this one," he said. "A brand new movie from Vietnam."
Which is how we discovered Co Dau Dai Chien, a sex-comedy released in 2011 that details the adventures of a rather gormless nouveau riche lothario and the clutch of women to whom he has promised his hand.

Now, don't be expecting any great delicacy of observation in this movie. In terms of sexual politics I dare say it is quite problematic. But in terms of entertainment this is a wonderful, and surprisingly sophisticated film. It represents the most fascinating meeting of cinematic traditions, combining the martial arts aesthetics of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with the sleek and sexually-charged repartee of the Rock Hudson & Doris Day movies, throwing in a generous dose of camp self-knowingness which at times put me in mind of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
It is also a remarkable evocation of contemporary Saigon, with its yuppie try-hards, its ambitious young career women, and centuries of tradition being fast jettisoned in the face of a growing prosperity. The film's hero is despicable in his treatment of women, but he is also ultimately punished for it in the most intimate and devastating way.
I absolutely loved this film, and simply couldn't stop laughing. The comedy veers from the slapstick to the cerebral, and the performances similarly slide from exquisitely subtle to over-the-top campery. But it is all such tremendous fun, and with such a complicated and even wicked moral, that the variety of experiences seem to be an intentional part of the journey.
Watch it with an open mind and tell me that the end isn't a kind of feminist triumph. Or I could have got it totally wrong.  

Catherine Deneuve

Having once been the face of Chanel No.5, muse of Yves Saint Laurent and partner of photographer DavidBailey, Catherine Deneuve remains one of the most stylish women in the world, and she was, perhaps, at her most stylish when she starred in Indochine RegisWargnier’s 1992 epic about the French colonial period in Vietnam. 

I saw Indochine long before I ever saw Vietnam, and it indelibly coloured my vision of that country. And I still see myself in a vauguely Deneuve-ish light, swanning about in the Vietnamese heat in some gorgeous Vietnam-inspired couture.

When we finally did get to Vietnam in 1994 the shadow of Catherine Deneuve still loomed, particularly in Hanoi. She must have been quite the shopper, because shop after shop in the Old Quarter featured a blown-up picture of the proprietor standing next to a gorgeously humble Miss Deneuve, her hair pulled back from her beautifully sculpted face.

Now in late middle age, Deneuve’s name remains the very byword for a certain kind of old-world Gallic glamour that has almost totally disappeared. She is the last of the great French film stars.

And she’s back and going strong in a new French romantic comedy called Beloved. She was also just awarded the Stanislavsky Prize for a lifetime’s acting – well deserved. 

The Moon at the Bottom of the Well

Last week I watched The Moon at the Bottom of the Well, an absolutely beautiful Vietnamese film, made in 2008.
Set in Hue, it is the story of the perfect wife in a less-than-perfect marriage. What makes the film utterly unique is its detailed look at popular religion, particularly the traditional shamanism and mediumship that occupies a legal grey-area in Vietnam.
I was captured right from the beginning, and learned quite a lot from it.