November 07, 2007
Owl and the Sparrow
The Streets of Saigon
Owl and the Sparrow is the story of Thuy, a ten year old orphan, determined to forge her own future. One evening, she runs away from her uncle and his bamboo factory, where her work is never good enough. Thuy breaks open her piggybank, packs her Disney knapsack, and boards a ferry for Saigon. As flower peddler on the streets of Saigon, Thuy eventually finds solace - and familial bliss - in the company of two young urbanites (a zookeeper and a flight attendant). Part-fairy tale, part-slice-of-life, Owl and the Sparrow marks the directorial debut of veteran cinematographer, Stephane Gauger. With a tilt-to-the-ground, guerilla camera, the Eurasian American (his mother is Vietnamese and his late father, a Frenchman) Gauger establishes a hybrid Western-Eastern identity integral to the film's sprawling backdrop.
Gauger's Saigon stands at an unlikely crossroads; the traditional and the modern intersect but never really meet. At the upscale, metropolitan airport terminal, stewardesses are decked out in ao dai attire. The streets consist of slummy vendor stands, overcrowded marketplaces, hotels, and designer boutiques. And mopeds, bicycles, trucks, and carts come at pedestrians from all directions. Saigon may not be utopia, but it is, nevertheless, one-of-a-kind – a rough-around-the-edges microcosm bustling with energy, fervor, and sweat; a place eight million working people have since called home.
Gauger's talent for spontaneity and improvisation behind the camera - he considers the Dardenne Brothers and John Cassavettes, among his influences - redeems his otherwise lackluster script (the backstory behind the zookeeper and the flight attendant's preceding love troubles feel tacked-on, at best). Owl and the Sparrow comes to life in handheld, on-the-fly shots of public crowds and spaces. The unsettling dynamics of the bustling city alone make for ripe melodrama. The individual is singled out and hoisted against society, in more ways than one. A chase sequence - between Thuy and an orphanage official - towards the end of the film, recalls this timeless conflict. Call it a case of deja vu: Thuy has successfully escaped from the shackles of her overbearing, traditionally collectivist uncle, only to be, alas, confronted with another authoritarian figure. Panting heavily out of breath, Thuy runs with all her might, trying to maintain the solitary and freedom she has experienced, over a week's course. The streets is now her home, and no one can change that reality - except Thuy herself. In short, Gauger has filmed an old-fashioned love letter to Saigon and modernity.
