The Lyrical Subversions of Socialist Realism in Đặng Nhật Minh’s New Wave Cinema

Healy, Dana

Abstract

This article looks at the career and work of a prominent Vietnamese film director, Đặng Nhật Minh. By taking a closer look at his film When the Tenth Month Comes, this article challenges the Cold War perception of communist art as a mere servant to politics and ideology, with little aesthetic ambition beyond its didactic and propagandist duty. It explores Minh’s use of lyricism as an effective tool of subversion and means to assert his autonomy as a communist artist. It is through the lyrical that the film director reaches back to the core of Vietnamese cultural identity and ancient traditions to provide a poetic affirmation of the resilience of his nation’s culture, while mobilizing a sense of belonging and loyalty to the communist project.

Citation

Healy, D. (2020). The Lyrical Subversions of Socialist Realism in Đặng Nhật Minh’s New Wave Cinema. In A. Skrodzka, X. Lu, & K. Marciniak (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190885533.013.23

• Acceptance Date: Dec 1, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Jul 1, 2019
• Publication Date: May 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jan 18, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 31, 2019
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Series Title: Oxford handbooks online
• Book Title: Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures
• ISBN: 9780190885533
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190885533.013.23
• Keywords: Vietnam, Vietnamese film, the Cold War, communism, visual cultures, socialist realism, lyricism, Đặng Nhật Minh