The Vertical Ray of the Sun

In Hanoi three sisters are preparing the meal for the anniversary of their mother's death. Their father's anniversary falls a month later, and the film takes place in the time between the two meals. Each sister is holding something back: one is pregnant and the father is uncertain, one has a husband building another life in another city, one lives with her brother in a closeness that is not quite ordinary. The subject is not the secrets but secrets being carried without ever being disclosed. The film detonates no conflict; information surfaces, nobody shouts, and life continues the same way. The choice does not weaken the narrative, it weighs it down. The form is entirely sensory. A green, hot, humid Hanoi; food being prepared, rain, open windows. Mark Lee Ping-bing is the cinematographer and much of the film's texture comes from his light. The same Lou Reed song plays in the brother's apartment each morning, and that repetition sets the film's rhythm. Trần Anh Hùng directs, with his wife Trần Nữ Yên Khê in the lead. It is counted as the last film of the trilogy he made about Vietnam. Như Quỳnh and Lê Khanh play the other two sisters. Who it is for: viewers who like slow family films built on atmosphere. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for events; the film chooses to have almost nothing happen.