A Phu and His Wife

Subjugated in their own ways to the feudal-imperial complex, young Hmong couple A Phu and My are drawn to each other in shared suffering. A rapturous tale of love and liberation, set in northwest Vietnam during the First Indochina War.

At the beginning of A Phu and His Wife, young My is already at the end of her rope. Kidnapped as a bride by the local landlord’s ruffian son, she resigns herself to a routine of abuse and domestic hardship. Life becomes meaningful again when she meets A Phu, a defiant villager enslaved by the landlord following an altercation. When A Phu faces lethal punishment for an oversight, My decides to elope with him, even if it means risking both their lives.

Directed by trailblazing North Vietnamese documentarian Mai Loc, who was himself part of the resistance during the French War (1946–54), A Phu and His Wife unfolds during a period of intense political upheaval, when the Viet Minh forces had begun to liberate the land from the double yoke of feudalism and colonialism. The result is a cathartic tale of love in the time of revolution.

The ravishing deep-space cinematography, by Mai’s long-time collaborator and comrade-in-arms Khuong Me, makes extensive use of reflected light and baroque camera movements, unearthing ethereal beauty from an otherwise brutal world. Far from being counter-revolutionary, Mai’s resounding film demonstrates, love and beauty are the very foundation of revolutionary feeling.

– Srikanth Srinivasan

• 

• 

•