One of my absolute favourite films is In The Mood For Love, the achingly beautiful tale of unconsummated love by auteur director Wong Kar Wai. It’s a classic for many reasons, from the indelible cinematography capturing the claustrophobic alleyways of 1960s Hong Kong to the sultry global soundtrack and the two impossibly attractive leads. It’s a pinnacle of international cinema that many filmmakers aspire to recreate but few rarely manage to recapture its magic.
Writer-director Leon Le takes inspiration from that masterpiece, yet also endeavours to make his own cinematic mark with Ky Nam Inn. Set in 1980s Saigon, the film centres upon the growing relationship between Khang (Lien Binh Phat) and Ky Nam (Do Thi Hai Yen), neighbours in a bustling apartment building. Khang has recently moved to the South Vietnamese city to work on a translation of Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; Ky Nam is a widow and talented cook who operates a modest meal delivery service out of her home kitchen. A minor incident brings the two together, despite Ky Nam’s initial reservations, and they gradually grow close.
Le expands upon the narrow confines of Wong’s original story, bringing other neighbours into the mix — including a doctor with a sublime collection of banned records, a teenage kitchen assistant who’s bullied for his mixed-race background, and a gossip-loving young woman with a crush on Khang — to create a rich tapestry of characters. Through the apartment building’s microcosm of life, which thrums with the daily routines of the young and old, viewers also get a sense of the unique socio-political elements that encircle the protagonists. There’s the ongoing tension between citizens of the North and the South, the undercurrent of fear that runs in the veins of those living under corrupt communist rule, and the fracturing of families that have borne the consequences of war.
All these elements are slowly revealed to form the many reasons why Ky Nam and Khang are destined to join the cinematic canon of tragic lovers. Yet, for the heartbreak and melancholy inherent in this story, it ends on a more hopeful note than In The Mood For Love. If Wong Kar Wai’s quintessential romance feels like a nocturnal film, Ky Nam Inn feels like its daytime equivalent.
The most striking element of Ky Nam Inn is its visual beauty, captured on 35 mm film by cinematographer Bob Nguyen. Each frame appears suffused with radiant and otherworldly light, highlighting the colours and textures of post-war Vietnam. Despite most of the film being set within a single building, each camera angle and movement is artfully composed, varied, and compelling. Each apartment, too, has its own personality, often filled with decorative objects and painted with vibrant wall colours to create a lived-in effect. Don’t forget about the food shots! (I immediately felt the need to eat Vietnamese food after watching.) The result is a splendid and eye-catching film that offers up a deeply nostalgic and romantic peek into a different time and place.
