'Cyclo' causes a stir in Vietnam

'Cyclo' causes a stir in Vietnam

HANOI (AFP): Cyclo, a French-backed film based on the life of a pedicab driver in Ho Chi Minh City, won plaudits and the top award at the Venice Film Festival but police in the Vietnamese city have given it the thumbs down.

"The movie covertly blackens Vietnamese society and its content is very bad ideologically," said an article in the city's police newspaper, Cong An Thang Pho Ho Chi Minh, a tabloid-style publication that thrives on gruesome crime stories.

"Some scenes in the film as well as its ideological content make a cold sweat run down your back," said the author of the article, who admitted that he had not yet seen the movie.

The movie was directed by Tran Anh Hung, a Frenchman of Vietnamese origin whose previous work The Scent of Green Papaya won an Oscar nomination for best foreign film.

Cyclo tells the story of the descent into crime of a driver of a pedicab whose vehicle is stolen and portrays the seamy underside of the former Saigon, a world that would come as no surprise to readers of the police newspaper.

Hung was quoted in the Thanh Nien newspaper as saying he had wanted "to make a film that would confuse the audience and make them feel exhausted watching it, to let them walk out of the cinema as if they have been tortured. "

The police newspaper compared the movie to novels by controversial authors Bao Ninh, Nguyen Huy Thiep and Duong Thu Huong that have come under attack in the current hardline political climate in Vietnam.

"These writers have not been around on the literary stage for long and their books are not representative of Vietnamese literature," the newspaper said. "They were published abroad because of their political content, not because of their literary merits."

"Cyclo" had been made for similar political reasons, the newspaper said, adding that the film had been criticized even in France for its violent content.

The film is expected to make its debut in Vietnam this month but several foreign-made films, including the successful documentary From Hollywood to Hanoi were well-received at official screenings but have never been put on general release.

Cyclo has generally been praised by the Vietnamese press, who compared the director to China's celebrated Zhang Yimou and welcomed the Golden Lion award it won at the Venice festival.