Three Seasons

Written and directed by Vietnamese-American Tony Bui (the first post-war American production in Vietnam), Three Seasons shows us a present-day Saigon in the full bloom of capitalism, where wooden bridges share space with neon signs, and where the war is just another marketing hook (characters frequent a bar called the "Apocalypse Now Cafe"). The largely-unconnected stories of four characters lead us through this world: a young woman who works on the lotus farm of a reclusive master; a cyclo driver infatuated with a local prostitute; a street urchin hawking trinkets to tourists; and an American Vietnam veteran (Harvey Keitel) returned to Saigon to find the daughter he never knew he had. Visually, Three Seasons is a remarkably assured debut, using the contrasts of ancient and modern to beautiful perfection. The narrative, as might be expected from a film with multiple independent storylines, is more inconsistent. Don Duong's wonderful performance as the cyclo driver gives his story the strongest emotional and thematic pull, though it also includes one of the least convincing hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold angles in quite some time. The other tales are hit-and-miss, with Keitel's American perspective feeling the most intrusive. At its heart, however, this is a story of healing, of reconciling a country's troubled past with its challenging present and future. Recommended, overall. (S. Renshaw)