Rural - Urban Boundaries in Contemporary Vietnamese Cinema: A Look from Phan Dang Di’s Films

Abstract

In traditional Vietnamese movie (before 2000), rural and urban areas are often depicted by cinematic stereotypes as absolutely separated and differentiated territories. Also, people living in these two spaces are often represented by contrasted traits, for example, rural people are naive, while urban people are sophisticated or sometimes, disrupted. But in contemporary Vietnamese cinema, rural and urban areas have been “de-territorialized”. The distinctions between the two spaces have been blurred, especially in the films made by young directors. Vietnamese films which are made in recent years show clearly that the personality of people are not sharply characterized according to their origin, rural or urban area, but are often in a very complex state. Often the characters have a mixed personality of rural and urban type. This paper approaches Phan Dang Di’s films as typical examples to present the ideas of rural – urban boundaries in urbanization process and the de-territorialization trend in contemporary Vietnamese movie.