No shortage of stories, only lack of new ways of telling
Cinema language innovation becomes more urgent as Vietnamese films not only compete domestically but also have to confront a series of international works on the same platform and the race to attract audiences.
From the perspective of a historical filmmaker, Colonel, director - Meritorious Artist Dang Thai Huyen, People's Army Cinema Association, raised the issue very frankly: Cinema cannot compete with the internet in terms of the speed of providing historical information. Young audiences today can easily find information about a battle, a campaign or a historical event on the internet. What cinema needs to do is to make them feel that history is related to themselves.
From the experience of directing "Red Rain", director Dang Thai Huyen believes that innovation does not mean changing history, but finding a new language for history to continue to live. Director Dang Thai Huyen believes that today's generation of artists has a responsibility to make young people in the past appear not only as names on steles, but as people who were once young, had dreams, love and aspirations very close to young people today.
That is also the issue raised by director - Meritorious Artist Nham Minh Hien, Ho Chi Minh City Actors Association, from TV series. According to him, when Vietnamese films are right next to foreign films on the same screen, audiences have more choices and therefore are also more demanding.
With television dramas, language innovation is not simply making images more beautiful and techniques more modern. It is a change from script, director, images, sound to acting so that the film truly tells stories in cinematic language. But the more professional and modern, according to director Nham Minh Hien, the more it must retain the "soul" and uniqueness of Vietnamese cultural life. From this, one important advantage of Vietnamese cinema can be seen as stories, heritage, land and people that we can tell from our own experiences and perspectives.
Identity is a competitive advantage
From the perspective of international integration, director - Meritorious Artist Bui Trung Hai, Vietnam Feature Film Studio Branch, expressed his opinion that to truly integrate with advanced cinemas, Vietnam needs to look more closely at the factors that determine the direction in the future.
One of those factors is storytelling ability and aesthetic standards. Bui Trung Hai said that both professionals and audiences need to improve their standards. When audiences have access to top world cinematic works, understand trends and basic professional factors, they will have better aesthetic bravery to evaluate films, thereby contributing to orienting the market to develop in the right direction.
Looking at the field of animation, screenwriter Pham Thi Thanh Ha, Branch of Vietnam Animation Film Studio, said that Vietnam has a rich source of historical, cultural, legendary and folk life materials to develop intellectual property (IP) assets with Vietnamese identity, towards the international market.
According to her, Vietnamese stories need to be told in modern cinematic language, and the visual language must also be innovated, based on the selection from fine arts, architecture, costumes, patterns, folk paintings and Vietnamese culture to form a unique visual style.
Notably, she proposed shifting from the mindset of producing a film to building an IP - intellectual property, so that the characters and the world in the film can continue to develop into series, comics, books, games, toys, educational products and other commercial products.
If you want to go far, you must first tell your story
Vietnamese cinema is not short of material to go out to the world; what needs to be innovated first is how to transform that material into cinematic language.
Identity, therefore, should not be understood as a template, making cinema become outdated. Identity must be the material to create new things. History is not framed lessons. Heritage is not decorative images. Culture is not a layer of clothing covering an existing story. Everything only truly lives when transformed into characters, fates, conflicts and emotions that today's audiences can recognize themselves in. Vietnamese cinema needs to tell its stories in a sufficiently new language, so that when stepping out into the world, viewers still recognize: That is Vietnam.
