Matter Matters | Interview with Đat Vũ and Trương Quế Chi on “Dawn of Love”

A meditation on desire, loss, and cinema, the multimedia installation Dawn of Love (2025) centres on an unfinished film adaptation of the short story Chuyện tình kể trước lúc rạng đông (“Love Story Told Before Dawn”). In this interview, the artists Đạt Vũ and Trương Quế Chi reflect on the lost film and its significance in the context of Vietnamese cinema, touching on ideological divisions between the North and the South during the Vietnam War, as well as subsequent shifts in the cultural sphere that followed a period of economic reform in the late 1980s and 1990s. Đạt and Chi also discuss how key motifs in the installation—quicklime, flowers, and scent—emerge as means of reconnecting with buried memories and navigating the present moment.

This interview was conducted on August 11, 2025, by AFA film programmer and curator Natalie Khoo and writer Sheryl Gwee. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

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NATALIE: What was your experience with encountering the short story “Love Story Told Before Dawn”? What drew you to the short story and the unfinished film?

CHI: About the story of the unfinished film Chuyện tình kể trước lúc rạng đông (Love Story Told Before Dawn)—this was a feature film project based on the short story of the same name by the writer Dương Thu Hương, published in 1988. This was during the Đổi Mới era (1986), when both Đạt and I were born and raised: me in Hanoi—the North; Đạt in Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon—the South.

This period of economic renovation and reform brought about many changes in the cultural sphere—in cinema, literature, music, and so on. In the North, several significant writers of our parents’ generation emerged, such as Nguyễn Huy Thiệp, Phạm Thị Hoài, and Dương Thu Hương. I was specifically interested in Dương Thu Hương, not just because she was one of the rare female writers then, nor because she was uncompromising, but because she had signed one book in my father’s library. It has a memorable title—Quãng Đời Đánh Mất, which means “The Lost Life”. When I read her writing, it holds fire. I feel the heat of anger, passion, shame, helplessness, and sorrow. It’s really vivid. 

Dương Thu Hương was also a screenwriter who had contributed several works to Northern Vietnamese cinema. Her literary works have been removed from public circulation in Vietnam since the early 1990s, so this short story was withdrawn shortly after its publication despite its great success. While the writer and our parents lived through wartime, neither Đạt nor I have any direct experience of war. Yet we both share strong feelings upon hearing this quote by Dương Thu Hương: the idea that Vietnamese people knew how to live in wartime, but did not know how to live in peacetime. There is a sense of resentment, and also of violence.

I became interested in the films produced by Vietnam Feature Film Studio with screenplays by Dương Thu Hương in the 1980s. Later, through a post by director Nguyễn Vinh Sơn on his social media page, I learned about a film project that was never accomplished. It was a Vietnamese-French co-production led by Lazennec, the French company that produced Trần Anh Hùng’s The Scent of Green Papaya (1993) and Cyclo (1995). Nguyễn Vinh Sơn, originally from Huế, Central Vietnam, was invited to direct the film, alongside a crew composed of French and Vietnamese members, as the French producers told Nguyễn Vinh Sơn at that time, to make a film about the Vietnam War “in a Vietnamese spirit, by a Vietnamese director”.

ĐẠT: Nguyễn Vinh Sơn adapted the story into a screenplay in 1997 with Trần Quốc Huấn, and they began filming in the spring of 1998. However, it was halted after about one month. There was no official announcement regarding this. 

CHI: The story of the unfinished project offered us another perspective on co-production in cinema at that time, which started in the early 1990s, when Vietnamese cinema was eager to “open up” through major collaborations with France, such as Indochine, Điện Biên Phủ, and L’amant, all in 1992. Co-production became a reflection that carried historical weight. Yet there were still stories that were not ready to be told at that moment. The multiple intertwined perspectives—our own and those of the people involved in the production—drew us into this project. 

 

NATALIE: As you mentioned, Chi, you grew up in the North, which is the setting for “Love Story Told Before Dawn”, an important literary work, while Đạt grew up in the South. Could you share about the significance of Northern cinema from your perspective?

ĐẠT: I read up a bit and drew a timeline with Chi. I think in Vietnamese cinema, the distinction between the North and South was largely influenced by the war. If we look at the 60s–70s, during the fight against the US, the subject matter was very different—in the North, they were making documentaries, docu-dramas, and propaganda films. In the South, there were war films and other genres, such as romance, comedy, musical, and horror.

After the war, all the private film companies closed down, and the Northern government dictated the films to be made. Many directors were returning from the Soviet Union and making interesting films, such as Thằng Bờm (1987), which I really like. It’s a comedy by the Northern director Lê Ðức Tiến, who studied in the Soviet Union from 1975 to 1980. In the South, film production essentially stopped until the 1990s, when Đổi Mới happened. 

 

NATALIE: This is a broader historical perspective, which is helpful. What was the significance of excavating Northern cinema for you, Chi? Did you have a different perspective?

CHI: For political reasons, we used to see Northern cinema as propaganda cinema. For me, this view is deeply limiting. I’ve had the opportunity to study the “national” North Vietnamese cinema, which began during the war in 1953 and was heavily influenced by Soviet cinema and the aesthetic of Socialist Realism. There are many remarkable works that we can discuss and revisit through another lens. Regardless of their shared ideology, these films possess distinct intrinsic qualities—a shifting visual landscape, from lyrical and poetic to boldly experimental, radiating great intensity. These are worlds full of contrasts and struggles, both external and internal to the human psyche, yet they still hold space for ambiguity and complexity. They echo the essential question of the Vietnamese people at that time: how do we live? How do I live?

Cinema transcends. To connect with this cinema means reaching back to my childhood and across generations—to my parents and grandparents. Because one of my practices is lecturing at the Academy of Theatre and Cinema in Hanoi, Vietnam’s oldest film school, I feel compelled to understand this legacy. To understand this cinema is to understand myself, in many layers.

 

NATALIE: It seems that you are interested in universal questions about the flow of life, rather than an overt focus on different ideologies.

ĐẠT: My parents grew up during the war in the South, and they commented that, “We feel bad for you guys, that you grew up in a rather poor period.” But for me, looking back, I don’t think it was that bad. I grew up at a time when the economy was actually transforming, doing a lot better, from the North to the South. There was a terrible period of subsidies from 1976 to 1986, and perhaps through suffering, people have come together. 

Another point I was also thinking about: regarding the opposing ideologies often carried by previous generations, I can sympathise with both sides. Even when I was in the US, I met some veterans who still lamented the loss of “their country”—meaning the South. It’s something I probably will never truly feel, but I can understand to some extent. At the end of the day, no matter what side they were on, many folks carried heavy losses, personally and nationally.

CHI: It’s been 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War, and of course, we have all these positive slogans and perspectives for the country, but I still feel that Vietnam is in a post-war era. There are many wounds that are not really addressed, not clearly discussed, and not expressed. Many things are still resented and repressed. Our project is also an attempt to go beyond by understanding and weaving different perspectives across periods. It helps us to navigate our present times in Vietnam. 

ĐẠT: One thing I noticed: when Chi and I tried to reach out to the crew members, some of them were reluctant to even recall what had happened. Even though it’s not a loss from the conflict, somehow it reminds me of how, if you look at Vietnamese oral history or family history in general, there are a lot of gaps between younger and older generations, mostly because the older generation doesn’t want to share this traumatising pain with their offspring or their grandchildren. 

I think this work is a way of doing that. By making lime into tombstones for these lost memories, we try to commemorate the pain but at the same time mitigate it. It’s forever that dilemma: to heal from the wounds you have to confront it or open up about it, but at the same time you run the risk of going through it all over again.

CHI: In recent years, maybe you have read or know about this book, The Body Keeps the Score (2014). When I learnt about this research which talks about the trauma of the Vietnam War, but from the American side, it made me think about how in Vietnam we do not have the same research, the same review of what really affects people, generation after generation, after the Vietnam War. From my knowledge, my friends and family, and all families in Vietnam, have a story, or more than one story, related to the war.

NATALIE: It’s interesting that you talk about The Body Keeps the Score, which is about embodied trauma, the idea that people store feelings and pain in their bodies. With your work, there are many representative objects related to trauma. You have assembled different “bodies”—limestones, flowers—and they are all very sensorial. Maybe we could talk about that. How have you assembled people and objects to voice these perspectives?

CHI: We began with the final scene of the short story, and both the story and the film are themselves acts of remembrance. This project, too, began in that way—both materially and immaterially. We learned from a production assistant that the screenplay had been adapted very faithfully from the original story, following its sequence closely. The final scene shows the male colonel protagonist visiting the grave of his lover in the fading light of dusk, carrying white flowers and the memory of their passionate kiss, along with a deep sense of regret for their unfulfilled love.

In response, we envisioned a landscape made of remnants—like what remains of a body—evoking the scenery, scents, objects, and light. Among these, scent is something one cannot distinctly experience in a film, yet it was what we felt most vividly when reading Dương Thu Hương’s short story. For this reason, we sought a way to distill it.

ĐẠT: We both knew that we did not want to “finish” the film, create a re-adaptation, or make any form of moving image. Instead, we chose to create something temporal as a gesture of commemoration. The installation form allows us to add our own interpretation and blend the layers of reality between the lives of the characters and the actual people who were birthing it. 

What surprised me throughout the process was that we arrived at the use of quicklime and scent. At some point, it felt like we were visiting a dead project without a grave.

SHERYL: In your proposal, there was a quote, “As ungrateful as lime”. Perhaps you could share a bit more about that and why you chose to use this material?

CHI: We were also influenced by the idea that we were now carrying out an archaeological process—the landscape was a cemetery and an archaeological setting.

Why quicklime? In Vietnam, quicklime has many layers of significance. Quicklime changes under different temperature conditions. It can be really hot. In the past, they would punish women with the liquid form of quicklime if they did something deemed “immoral”. It was also used as a form of punishment for prisoners of war.

ĐẠT: Quicklime also appears in a Vietnamese idiom, “bạc như vôi”. Bạc như vôi literally translates to “Silver like quicklime”, but figuratively, it means “as ungrateful as lime.” Bạc has two meanings in Vietnamese: the material silver and the process of fading. This connects with the white-to-greyish colour of vôi, quicklime—a material that crumbles in the presence of air as it reacts with atmospheric moisture and carbon dioxide. Such a process symbolises a person’s fading feelings and potential for coldness, hence the connotation of being ungrateful. 

CHI: In the process of experimentation, as we tried to combine and concentrate the scents and fragrances in the stone, we discovered that quicklime is very suitable for holding fragrances.

 

NATALIE: Any other key scenes with the scent?

ĐẠT: There is a heartbreaking scene with the pomelo scent. After Vũ Sinh and Lựu intially divorced, they each started loving other people. However, Lựu was influenced by her close friend and colleague in the Women’s Association, who urged her to “protect the family happiness”. She appealed to the court, so she had to break up with her lover, Mộc. In this scene, Mộc brought two pomelos to Lựu’s home, and upon knowing that Lựu was going back to her husband, he left the pomelos there, unpeeled, and resigned himself.

 

SHERYL: What is one thing you hope the audience can take away from encountering your work?

CHI: Through this project, we hope to open a gateway to a period and shed light on the people’s story. Đạt and I realised that regardless of where you come from and the distance, we still have common sentiments and shared feelings.

Maybe we can share about the title of the project. We decided to go with “Dawn of Love”, because it expresses how something has ended, yet something new has also begun. 

 

NATALIE: It’s beautiful. Even though we’ve talked about the project many times, I feel that speaking to you today has brought us to a new understanding. Thank you.