Asian-American cinema has been making significant steps forward recently, and “Supermarket Affairs”, by Vietnamese Nguyen Luong Hang (who has collaborated with Trinh Dinh Le Minh's in the award-winning debut feature “Goodbye Mother” ) is another testament to the fact, as it takes a rather amusing approach to life of Vietnamese immigrants in the US, inspired by Lynda Trang Dai's hit in the Vietnamese-American community “Supermarket Love Affair”, which is actually heard in the movie.
Supermarket Affairs is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival
Mrs Hoa is an elderly Vietnamese woman who has moved to Houston to live with her daughter, after the death of her husband from lung cancer. As we watch her shopping in a supermarket in the beginning of the movie, the first issues she faces are revealed. She does not speak the language, so any kind of communication is a problem for her. Ha, her daughter, who has worked to establish herself in the country and bring her in, does not have much time for her, and is dismissive to her wishes, as in the picking of a rooster instead of a hen for a ritual regarding the deceased. A frustrated Mrs Hoa finds solace in the appearance of a young Asian-American man, who immediately makes her dreaming of a supermarket romance. When a bit later, she returns to the store, this meeting takes a whole other turn.
Nguyen Luong Hang implements a fable-like approach to highlight the issues that concern the type of relationships presented in the movie. The language barrier is the most central one, but the generational gap is also eloquently highlighted, as much as the cultural one, which is presented by both the daughter and her boyfriend, John. The appearance of the young man is also implemented in a similar fashion, to show that Hoa may be old but is not yet dead, as much as that life goes one, which seems to be the final message of the 15 minute short.
Probably the most interesting aspect here is the way Nguyen implements the coloring, in a way that mirrors Mrs Hoa's mentality. As such, the first scenes in the supermarket are as vivid as possible, to the point that the setting looks as much as a circus as a supermarket, in rather amusing fashion that finds its apogee in the music video-like scene. The scenes in the scenes in the house feature a more restrained palette, as much as the return in the store, only for intense brightness to close the short in the most meaningful way.
Granted, Ha's reaction in the end is not exactly justified, while the ending message about the cigarettes does not make that much sense (maybe if Vietnamese people were renowned for their smoking tendencies but I am not sure about that) but as a whole, the narrative is quite good, both in terms of the presentation of the comments and the entertainment it offers.
Quyen Ngo is convincing in the role of Ha, with her frustration being well-communicated, but the show stealer here is definitely Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc as Mrs Hoa, who fills the screen every time she appears on it, both in the cliched and the absurd moments of her character.
Some issues do exist here, but in the end, “Supermarket Affairs” is as meaningful as it is entertaining, in another testament to the progress of Asian-American cinema.
.
