Films of Nguyễn Trinh Thi – Assembling Vietnam

One of the most prolific artist-filmmakers from Southeast Asia, Nguyễn Trinh Thi, interrogates how history is constructed, circulated, and remembered. Across essay, archival montage, and experimental documentary, her films question who has the authority to narrate a nation, and how images shape what we have come to accept as truth. Whether tracing the erasure of cultures, reframing decades of Vietnamese state cinema or exposing how Vietnam has been imagined through foreign lenses, Nguyễn’s works reveal the instability beneath official narratives. Her films and practice question the ethics of speaking for others, the afterlives of images and the fragility of historical narratives. Vietnam the Movie (2013, Nguyễn Trinh Thi) Who owns the history of Vietnam? By stitching a montage of clips from Hollywood movies, European arthouse films and documentaries, Vietnam the Movie attempts to answer this question by presenting a chronological account of Vietnamese history from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s. Nguyễn’s reappropriation of these images exposes how the country has been framed through foreign cinematic lenses, where lived histories are frequently overshadowed by myth, metaphor, and external geopolitical narratives. Eleven Men (2016, Nguyễn Trinh Thi) “The voice of the film is hers. It’s the main thing. What the men are and who they stand for is secondary.” — Nguyễn Trinh Thi Eleven Men assembles fragments from numerous Vietnamese feature films spanning three decades, united by the presence of the iconic actress Như Quỳnh. Borrowing its narrative framework from Franz Kafka’s 1919 short story “Eleven Sons,” the film reimagines the text’s paternal voice via a gendered inversion. Through this transposition, appropriated roles and state-sanctioned narratives are rearranged into an exploration of storytelling, gender roles, and the ways cinema has shaped womanhood across decades. Landscape Series #1 (2013, Nguyễn Trinh Thi) Fingers pointing in the distance, leaving us to wonder: Who or what are they pointing to? Nguyễn’s collation of images shows people gesturing toward something unseen, unnamed, or no longer present. The landscape, in turn, stands as a silent witness to the histories that extend beyond the frame. Accompanied by the steady rhythm of a slide projector, Landscape Series #1 invites viewers to imagine the absent events, memories, and narratives that these fingers attempt to summon. Letters from Panduranga (2016, Nguyễn Trinh Thi) Threading between fiction and documentary, Letters from Panduranga documents the gradual destruction of the Cham people’s architecture, culture, and community. Unfolding through a letter exchange between a man and a woman, the film weaves together oral histories, collective memory, and shifting landscapes while remaining acutely aware of its position at the periphery of the community it portrays. Rather than claiming to speak for the Cham people, the work foregrounds the complexities of representation, anthropology, and historical narration, revealing the limits of documenting lived experiences.