Monsoon

Kit can’t remember much of his native Vietnam. When he returns to the Land of the Golden Star for the first time in over thirty years, he takes in his local surroundings as any Western tourist would, and the environment is as exotic as the language is incomprehensible. The aim of Kit’s travels – to find a place to scatter his parents’ ashes – thus becomes part of a journey back to his roots and to the discovery of his identity, which external circumstances have rendered ambiguous and complex. Hong Khaou follows up his debut Lilting with this subtle film about rootlessness, the process of recollection, and finding new contexts that bring a different sense to one’s existence. In the former work he likewise found an evocative expression of the inner transformation of heroes trying to see the way ahead.