American Cinematographer - February 1999 - 67

fully financed by an American studio
to be filmed entirely on location in
Vietnam. The film's poetic images
and poignant, intertwining stories
depict a land and people long hidden

of influence. In 1992, there

from Americans.

didn't

Bui, the picture's 25-year-old
writer/director, was born in Vietnam

From

just before the fall of Saigon. When
he was two years old, his parents left
the war-ravaged country and settled
in Sunnyvale, California, the heart of
Silicon Valley. A teenage zeal for
storytelling and the creation of short
Super 8mm films and videos led Bui
to the film program at Loyola
Marymount University. In 1992, he
began a series of personal sojourns to
Vietnam, and the experience had a
lasting impact on his filmmaking
aspirations. "Visually, I was so struck
and affected by what I saw," Bui
recalls. "There were so many changes.
It's a country going through a stage

it

were

Russian

ships and kiosks everywhere.
By 1997, all of that was gone,
replaced by Coca-Cola and Pepsi
signs and [ubiquitous] taxis - taxis

metaphor for the rebirth of his
ethnic culture. Three Seasons tells the
human story

presented the humanity and
spirit of the Vietnamese people
liberated from the politics of war.

of a changing Vietnam
through lyrical visual allusions.
The film begins in the Dry
Season, tracing the tale of a man who
drives a modern-day version of a
rickshaw: a three-wheeled bicycle
taxi, or cyclo. He falls in love with a
high-society call girl, who spends the
hot, dry months maneuvering her
way out of poverty by sleeping with
foreign men. Her character
represents an underclass living in the
back alleys of a growing city known

The film

as

even

exist in Vietnam in 1993.
1997 there

1992 to

dramatic

was

a

change and influence, and

all Western."

was

Bui's
homeland

early visits to his
inspired him to write a

30-minute short film, Yellow Lotus,
which

shot

was

Vietnam with

a

on

location in

student

crew

"the other world."
The film's second segment,

of 10

for

which

restrictive government

follows

project for
permission. "I was so naive, I actually

during the Wet Season,
8-year-old street peddler
who loses his wooden case of Zippo
lighters on a rainy night. During his
search for the lighters, the boy meets
a
six-year-old orphan girl with

did it," Bui recalls. "If I'd known how

whom he forms

a

silent bond. As

hard it would be, I

these Buoi Doi (or

"children of the

only $9,000. The country's
and strict
censorship made it difficult for

filmmakers

to

shoot in Vietnam, but

submitted

Bui

tried. I

sent a

his

fax

never

to

would have

the film studio

there, and they agreed to sponsor me.
I couldn't believe it. I said I had

money,

their

and that I would have to
old

Russian

dollies

no

use
and

equipment, and they said, 'Yes,
definitely come.' I think they were
interested in the story I was writing
because Yellow Lotus had nothing to
do with war. I was very conscious
about making films that told about
Vietnam today." The minister of
culture in Hanoi approved the
project in less than four days, the
fastest go-ahead a foreign filmmaker
had

ever

received.

Yellow Lotus

premiered at the 1995 Telluride Film
Festival, screened at Sundance,
awards

at

the

Francisco and

and

was

Chicago film festivals,

televised

The

won

Hamptons, San
on

success

PBS.

open

the cinematic door to Vietnam

for American
audiences.

Bui

and

international

approached the

subject of present-day Saigon
poetically, using the seasons as a

an

night") make their way through the
night world of Saigon, the city's drug
dealers, prostitutes, trashy bars and
clubs are revealed through their eyes.
The boy eventually follows an ex-G.I.
(Harvey Keitel, the only American
in the cast) who he thinks may
have stolen the case. The G.I. is on his
actor

own

personal odyssey to find the
daughter he has

half-Vietnamese
never

met.

In the final

segment, which

unfolds in the Growth Season, the

simple existence of a lotus picker is
threatened by a company producing
plastic lotuses that will never die. The
woman's relationship with the
reclusive lotus plantation master, an
eccentric

bard, is contrasted with the

growing commercialization of the
country.

A

The

of Yellow Lotus

inspired Bui to take on the challenge
of creating a feature film that would

occurs

from

journey of Three Seasons,
poetic words on paper to

location work in Vietnam,
when Yellow Lotus

was

began

screened at

Robert Redford's Sundance Film
Festival.
invited

Bui
to

Sundance

was

subsequently

participate in the
prestigious

Institute's

American

cyclo falls in

love with

a

high-society
call girl in the
Dry Season
portion of the
film, which is
marked by
colors

warm

and a dusty
feeling.

Cinematographer 65
American Cinematographer - February 1999

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 1999
