Organization of Vietnamese Professionals

Our first big event of this year will be a combination movie showing followed by a barbecue!

We will be showing the movie "Three Seasons" a highly acclaimed movie that was a triple winner at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

Amazon.com
Although its publicity touts Three Seasons, a triple winner at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, as "the only American film made entirely in Vietnam,, there is little that is American about this movie. Its sensibility seems far more Vietnamese than American, from its lyrical Oriental imagery and its concern with the plight of Vietnamese citizens since the war to its reverence for the country's ancient culture. Similarly, Harvey Keitel is listed as the star, but his is really the most minor of the film's major roles.
Three Seasons tells three tangentially linked stories. First is the tale of Kien An (Ngoc Hiep Nguyen), a lovely young woman who works picking lotus blossoms at a sanitarium. She becomes a scribe for its mysterious proprietor, Teacher Dao (Manh Cuong Tran), a leper who hides himself away in shame but whose soul is full of beautiful poetry. Then there is Hai (Don Duong), a gentle "cyclo" (bicycle ricksha) driver who falls in love with Lan (Zoe Bui), an alluring, feisty prostitute he sees coming and going from the big tourist hotels. Last, there is James Hager (Keitel), an ex-Marine who fought in the war and has returned to find the daughter he fathered many years before. There is also a charming plot about Woody (Huu Duoc Nguyen), a little street urchin who sells contraband out of a suitcase. The narrative involving Keitel's character is the least developed in the film, and seems to be almost an afterthought, but in any event, truly magnificent visuals and a delicate lyricism make Three Seasons a haunting, bittersweet film portrait of life in contemporary Vietnam. --Laura Mirsky

From The New Yorker
The début film of the Vietnamese-American director Tony Bui, in which the lives of several people in Ho Chi Minh City-a cyclo driver and the prostitute he's obsessed with, a middle-aged G.I. looking for his Vietnamese daughter, a young woman who writes down the verse of a leprous poet, and a little street kid who has lost his merchandise-are woven into a composite picture of life after the war. The movie substitutes sensitivity for drama; it's a little too high-minded. But the cinematography (by Lisa Rinzler) is lustrously beautiful, and the editing is very fine. Bui, only twenty-six, is a superb craftsman, and the movie's lulling tone and tempo are easy to take. With Harvey Keitel as the American; the accomplished Vietnamese actors include Don Duong, Zoë Bui, and Nguyen Ngoc Hiep. In Vietnamese. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

The movie will start promptly at 4:15.

The barbecue will start at 6pm. It is potluck style, so please bring your favorite dish to put on the 2 gas grills that will be available. We should have some drinks available but feel free to bring your own. Alcohol is allowed. This will be on the rooftop of a very nice condo building in DC. There is also a pool so if the weather is warm, bring your swimwear.

You MUST RSVP to this by sending me an email so that you can be added to the Evite. Send the RSVP email to contact@vietprofessionals.org. We are capping this party at 50 people. Hope to see you there.