The Southern Vietnam plain of reeds Dong Thap Muoi, with immense water fields romanticized by thousands of lotus during the heroic struggle of Vietnamese people to achieve the independence, was once brought on a screen by the People’s Artist Hong Sen. Now again in "Mua Len Trau" (The Buffalo Boy) made by Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh, the land turns to have a brass-bold spirit, fresh but neglected to break in the old days of Southern Vietnam.
There are low thatched cottages in vast water fields. There are poor people who devote their lives to the land. There are human lives of trials and troubles which are bleak, miserable but benevolent. Every scene of the film marks a deep feeling of bold spirit inside viewers. The film narrative is like a fairy tale which is told by the grand father to his descendants about the old days when this land was first cultivated.
The grand father’s voice is steady but very typical monotonous of a Southerner farmer. It is like magic, seems to occur inside every human soul and brings hundred waves from the water field.
The deprived and harsh Southern land and its people have been suffering many ups and downs in life. However, having a highly optimistic and strong spirit, the people still expose themselves to the nature with vitality, turning the land into a rice field and a pond which is full of fishes and shrimps, swishing in the alluvium water flows.
There is no sign of soil nor grass to feed buffaloes; thus, the farmers have to shift their buffaloes to another field and wait for the coming of dry season. That’s the major episode in this film and these events occurs in the so-called flooding season, when families send away their dear buffaloes - the only mean of subsistence. Then, they themselves stay back to earn a living. Every flock of buffaloes paddles in the water field, painting a picture of black color and strongly wild spirit that leaves a deep impression with the viewers.
It is the first time Dong Thap Muoi to be brought on screen in such a unique landscape. Every scene of Director Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh’s film carries an image of a miserable land, just like the miserable people who are living there. Each September, the land changes into a vast sea of water, but its people persistently stay, be up there and downs in their misery suffering from generation to generation. I wonder if there is any other place in this world where man must work and live in flooding fields for their whole lives. Probably not.
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