Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: MIEN KY UC (MEMORYLAND) [Berlinale 2022]

The texture of death and how it affects others and how we remember others is steeped in certain traditions but also aspects of guilt and intensity. "Mien Ky Uc" (Memoryland) [Forum] takes an interesting approach that at first almost seems documentary in style until the acting takes place. While some of it seems posed, the humanity and irony of the narrative as it unfolds shows an interesting failsafe of society in Vietnam where this takes place, how marriage defines a family, and certain people's reflection of how they reach the afterlife, either by accident, suicide or simply old age. Some of the texture especially the one of a wife who loses her husband too soon have a sardonic humor to them but also a sadness in the inability to move on. Her intersection with another character that seemed to find the path and later responds but doesn't rehabilitate is ironic especially in the way he reacts to another's hard ship. That perception is reflected in art in a way he could not see in life.

"Memoryland" references the idea that what people want and what their children and or relatives see are completely different. The notion of ghosts is not really said but the use of how people in certain parts of Vietnamese culture see the afterlife reflects in nature and certain aspects of mysticism (but also as a reflection of self and guilt). The forlorn wife singing through a cemetery with ornate headstones is particularly powerful just as is her interaction with a pig who doesn't understand its slaughterhouse potential or her owner's sorrow. This makes for one of the lighter moments in the film but there is no relevance to dark without the light. The reality is that the son who integrates throughout the film ultimately is the one that loses per se because even though he does what is asked of him, he fails to grasp the significance and that perhaps is the greatest irony. B

By Tim Wassberg