Owl and the Sparrow (Cú và chim se sẻ, 2007) is an odd title for a movie about three people. And if one misses a line of dialogue, one would probably think the runaway orphan Thuy (Pham Thi Han) must be the sparrow. Ten years old, she's like small, right? Well, in fact, it is Thuy who identifies the lonely flight attendant, Lan (Vietnamese-American actress Cat Ly), as a sparrow. She likens the barely socialized Hai (Le The Hu, the "Buffalo Boy" four years older), whose father was a zookeeper living spartanly on the premises (not on display or behind bars) before him to owls, because owls are wise. If I were assigning totems, Hai would be one of the elephants he loves and Lan a red-crowned crane befitting her flying (back and forth between Hanoi and Saigon, aka Ho Chi Minh City). "The sparrow, the crane, and the elephant"?

At the start, Thuy is working in her uncle's small factory producing bamboo mats. After being chewed out, she runs away to the city — where her uncle said she would not last a day. She receives help from a noodle shop tout (a boy) and a steamed-bun street vendor (a girl) and starts her career in the street selling postcards. The tout suggests she sell roses in outdoor restaurants. Outfitted in a schoolgirl uniform she does.

Both Hai and Lan take pity on her, feeding and sheltering her. Somewhat surprisingly, her uncle searches for her and there are police targeting child vendors and placing them in orphanages, so even with friends, Thuy has a difficult time.

She also has a difficult time bringing Lan and Thai together. She likes both of them, so they should like each other, right? Thuy is oblivious to the class differences (flight attendants are more elite in Vietnam than in North America) and a very strong will, so what can lonely grown-ups do but accede to become her de facto father and mother, and thus join together? Of course, there are complications, and the ending requires more suspension of disbelief than would have been necessary, but it's difficult to imagine any viewers not rooting for Thuy to forge the family she wants, though the inept magician who is a cousin of the young women working in the Saigon hotel where Lan stays has some self-effacing charm. The airline captain with whom Lan has been having an affair has none... and the deleted scene of him going to the zoo to tell Hai not to aspire so high (as Lan on the ground, let alone in the air) would have made this alternative look worse than unpromising.

The DVD also has another scene involving a visit to Hai that was wisely cut, plus a charming-enough (standard) making-of featurette and a trailer. There is a commentary track by writer-director-cinematographer Stephane Gauger (who was born in Vietnam and has a Vietnamese mother; he grew up in Orange County, where there is a high concentration of Vietnamese, and and graduated from California State University, Fullerton (in Orange County) majoring in theatre arts and French literature) that is remarkably uninformative. That is, most of what he says puts into words what is already obvious in the movie.

The movie was shot without any permits in Saigon/HCMC and in some other locations owned by friends of the film-maker on a tiny budget. Though the main storyline is very predictable, the performers and locales make the movie rewarding. Gauger is either very astute at casting or very good at directing performers with little or no professional acting experience. The movie is a crowd-pleaser, winning best narrative feature at the 2007 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the audience award at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival, Gauger received the emerging filmmaker award at the 2007 Starz Denver Film Festivaland and the John Cassavetes award at the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards. The movie is less harrowing than "Slumdog Millionaire" or "Beijing Bicycle" (or "Buffalo Boy"). It is the most linear, most upbeat, and least languorous Vietnamese film I've seen.

Gauger has directed "Saigon Electric" (2011); if Pham Thi Han or Le The Hu have made any more movies, they are unknown to IMDB (and Anglophone audiences).

©2011, Stephen O. Murray

Recommended: Yes

Movie Mood: Date Movie