dung so! Bi by Phan Dang Di

A child’s eyes can provide a unique point of view over the world of adults, and the lightness of the eponymous little Bi is in fact fascinating. In the Vietnamese city of Hanoi, this six-year-old walks through the lives of his family; from the sickness of his grandfather, to the absence of his father, and the loneliness of his aunt. While the boy is playing in an ice factory to fill his solitude, men commit silent betrayals and women are forced to stay quiet, pretending to ignore the truth. This violent yet classic opposition between the complexity of adulthood and the innocence of youth becomes the main stake of this tepid tale, tied to a handful of people struggling with the empty routine of their everyday lives.

Not that a precise structure is always needed in cinema, but Bi, dung so! (Bi, don’t be afraid!), a surprising French- Vietnamese-German coproduction, remains too detached from a real point of view to keep the viewer’s attention, despite some daring sex scenes. Lost in a timeless place cut off from the modern world, Bi vanishes from the screen after the vision of a plane, the only possible - yet unreachable - escape route from the life he is condemned to. This brief last image certainly remains the most striking.

By Geoffrey Crété