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Review

s

et in modern Vietnam, Three
Seasons has a sentimental
reach and some poetic grasp.
And it is movingly in love
with the country and people.
Director Tony Bui, for this film of
three stories woven loosely together,
pulls up his roots as if they were
orchids. The result has a perfume that
can seep into you.
One of the stories comes rather
close to being a dud. And another
offers a sort of refined, "Old Asia"
exoticism. But one is quite strong, and
Bui skillfully uses it to prop the others,
lifting the general level rather high.
Filmed in Ho Chi Minh City, the
stories occur during a heat wave often
saturated by rain. And they happen
mostly on the streets, so that the city
and its scrambling residents are fully
engaged participants.
In the most impeccably shot, if self-
conscious story, a woman is hired to crop
white lotuses growing on pads in a gor-
geous water garden, at the center of
NG:Rich is a shuttered, decaying temple.
She peddles the flowers on the streets,
but feels the lure of an old poet who lives
in the temple, a recluse with leprosy
Also working on the streets is Hai,
a middle-aged driver of a cyclo-taxi (a
bike rickshaw). A quiet, even self-con-
taMed observer, he is drawn to a pros-
titute who sells herself to upscale
tourists in the luxury hotels.
She fears his attention, and can't
believe his simple, undemanding
regard, a form of gallantry that doesn't
see deep shame in her work or show
any regret for the lowliness of his own.
The least imposing story involves
the film's executive producer, Harvey
Keitel. He appears as a former Marine
looking for his grown daughter, born
to his lover during the_war. While
Keitel may not be everyone's idea of a
movie star, he is a familiar American
presence and, in this film, a - bit jarrMg,
Keitel is toofine an actor not to deliv-
er some value, notably in a dinnerscene
where his face is buckled by surges of
feeling. It is not his fault that this entire
segment feels rather shopworn, some-
thing digested by other `Nam-vet stories.
Partly because of Lisa Rinzler's pho-
tography, and the genuine, restrained act-
ing, Three Seasons achieves a pungency of
mood that overcomes some obviousness.
This movie is about forms of corn-
passion and acceptance. Such radiant,
even Buddhist delicacy is rare in mod-
ernfilms.
Rated PG-13. 0**
— Reviewed by David Elliott

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7/3G
1999

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