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A
Tale of Love
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FILM
STILLS |
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102
min. color film (1996) |
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Produced
and Directed by |
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Trinh
T. Minh-ha and Jean-Paul Bourdier |
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Written
& Edited by |
Trinh
T. Minh-ha |
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Production
and Lighting Design |
Jean-Paul
Bourdier |
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Line
Producer & Production Manager |
Erica
Marcus |
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Director of
Photography |
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Kathleen
Beeler |
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Music by |
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The
Construction of Ruins with Greg Goodman & J.A. Deane |
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Featuring |
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Mai
Huynh
Juliette Chen
Dominic Overstreet
Mai Le Ho
Kieu Loan |
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Portraying
the Vietnamese immigrant experience through Kieu, A Tale of Love
follows the quest of a woman in love with Love. Voyeurism runs through the
history of narrative and is here one of the threads that structure the film.
Playing with the fiction of love in love stories, the film invites a different
experience of cinema with non-naturalistic acting and layered interaction
of performed reality, memory and imagination. |
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A
Tale of Love is loosely based on The Tale of Kieu, the Vietnamese national
poem of love, written in the early 19th century, which tells of the misfortunes
of Kieu, a martyred woman who sacrificed her "purity" and prostituted
herself for the good of her family. The poem has become a metaphor for the
often-invaded Vietnam. Director Trinh's transformation of The Tale of Kieu
into contemporary American life unfolds [with] The modern-day Kieu, caught
between two cultures and torn between economic necessity and sensuality,
also has to find the path of her own desire while selling the image of her
body and encountering the "tales of love" of the people around
her. |
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from the Asian Art Museum catalog |
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The
film also works with a subtly "denaturalized" space of acting.
In the way the shots and the dialogues are carried out, both spectators
and actors share the discomfort of voyeurism: the unnaturalness of those
who "look without being looked at" ( i.e. the makers, the spectators)
versus the self-consciousness of those who "know they are being looked
at while they are being watched" (i.e. the actors). |
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Filmmaker's statement |
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"Unique
contribution to the cinema. Trinh's experiment... captures the unadulterated
and elemental sensations that characterize a state of being in Love. The
film presents to its audience partial views, saturated colors, elliptical
narratives... A Tale of Love is a film that must be savored." |
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Deb Verhoeven, World Art |
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"Nothing
else around is even remotely like it... beautiful... aggressive music score
and oddly contrapuntal mise en scene... At times a frankly erotic film that
interrogates its own eroticism, it challenges the audience as well with
its acting styles." |
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Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader |
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"Trinh
T. Minh-ha uses an elegant, delicate form of ellipse... to unfold the multilayered
meanings of 'love'... A Tale of Love opens new vistas for formal
and cultural experimentation." |
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Bernice Reynaud, Cinemaya |
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"A
sometimes lighthearted, always sensual look at the state of being in love....
Both the visual techniques and soundtrack become important statements in
and of themselves. The camera often seems a step removed from the actors,
and often, like the dynamic primary-colored lighting can take on a narrative
life of its own." |
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Angie Chuang, The Times |
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"A
Tale of Love transgresses the borders between narrative film and experimental
film.... Kieu makes me think of a 'character zone'... it's undescribable,
and it makes you want to see the film again and re-experience the cracks
and fissures in narrative and character." |
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Gwendolyn Foster, Film Criticism |
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Festivals |
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Toronto
Festival of Festivals (Canada 95) |
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Berlin
International Film Festival (Germany 96) |
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San
Francisco Asian American Film Festival (USA 96) |
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Film
Fest New Haven (Connecticut, USA 96) |
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Mostra
Internacional de Films de Dones de Barcelona (Spain 96) |
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Los
Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (USA 96) |
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Taipei
Golden Horse Film Festival (Taiwan 96) |
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Umea
International Film Festival (Sweeden 96) |
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Feminale
Women's Film Festival (Koln, Germany 96) |
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Atlanta
Image Film Festival (USA 97) |
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Southeast
Asian Film Festival (Vancouver, Canada 97) |
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