What is it about? After his sister-in-law dies in a motorcycle accident in Saigon, Tien is tasked with returning her body to his home village. He also takes in his 5-year-old nephew, Dao, who miraculously survived the accident. Amidst the mystical landscapes of the Vietnamese countryside, Tien sets out in search of his older brother who disappeared years ago, a journey that deeply challenges his faith.
2023 Cannes Golden Camera
The Golden Butterfly Tree was featured in the Filmmakers’ Fortnight at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It won the Camera d’Or, which awards the best first film, in all categories combined.
Directed by Pham Thiên Ân, the feature film is a sequel to his short film, Be Awake, Be Ready. Before filming the latter, the director had already written a treatment of “Golden Butterfly Tree”, although it was quite different from the final version of the film.
Stay Awake, Be Ready was built from the first scene of The Golden Butterflies Tree script: “My goal with this short film was to experiment with the pace and setting of the film. To be honest, when I started making this short film, I was not yet familiar with the pace and setting of the cinematic scene. I worked instinctively. With enthusiasm and passion.”
The call of the divine
The Golden Butterfly Tree is based on the concept of what the director calls “divine calling”: “No matter what social class we belong to, this concept is in each of us and manifests itself at different moments of life. This is where I formed the characters that have shaped me in the past and in the present. I consider cinema as mine. “Divine Calling”.
Pham Thien Ân was born and raised in a Vietnamese town where spirituality is strong: residents get up early to attend mass before work, then gather at dusk to read scriptures and pray. When he went to Saigon to study and work, the principal went missing “A pointless, exhausting and repetitive race to earn money and achieve success. Yet all I encountered was frustration, confusion and insecurity.”
To solve this, he tried to connect with emotions and spirituality. That’s how he got into directing. His journey featured a film: “I wanted to immerse a man in a journey to his hometown that leads him back to his past. This return reveals his inner conflict between the faith he neglected and the life that makes him deeply dissatisfied. The journey reflects the dimensions. The human soul, which we always seek but never reach , related to our dreams, passions and the inevitability of death.
An autobiographical film?
Pham Thien brought much of his personal life to the feature film. The character is also called Tien: “Thien’s story may reflect me: drinking with friends, getting massages, shooting and editing wedding videos, performing magic for the amusement of friends, obsessing over a hopeless love from the past, occasionally wandering the city’s hilly homeland in search of lasting memories… but I don’t think it’s at all It is an autobiographical film. Integrating many personal elements was a natural process for me.”
take your time
Film favors long exposures and slow camera movements. A choice that primarily responds to the director’s aesthetic taste, but also to the desire to challenge. It was also about the way the viewer perceives images and sounds: “Slow, long camera movements create spaces that allow the viewer to freely observe and wait, forcing them to forget the presence of the camera, so that the surprises appear naturally in the frame.”
Thus, sometimes there is a synchronization between film time and reality: “When the audience identifies with the character, immerses themselves in the journey unfolding on the screen and shares the same heartbeat with them, real time disappears. Then the audience really feels inside the frame and experiences the passage of time in the film. I think it is. Also, when the line between realism and surrealism is blurred.
A familiar team
Pham Thiên Ân was surrounded by a small team of her friends, including cinematographer Dinh Duy Hung, who had been her best friend since childhood. This allowed him to acquire a true sense of freedom: “When we finished the film, I was told that filming gave them a lot of knowledge and experience that they didn’t have in other projects. That made me happy. For me, “everyone has their own strengths and unique energy to create something. extraordinary A film succeeds when the people who make it together give their best and are passionate about the project.”
The Golden Butterfly Tree, in theaters now.
Source: Allocine
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
