Nuoc 2030
According to the makers, the eco-romantic thriller “Nuoc (2030)”, which opened the Panorama section of the Berlinale in 2014, is the first Vietnamese science fiction film. Vietnam, like Holland, is one of the existentially threatened countries by climate change-induced sea rise, so it is not surprising that "Nuoc (2030)" throws a pessimistic outlook on a continent devoured by sea water and deals with a national collective fear. With this, director Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo (“Buffalo Boy”) succeeds in creating a very interesting genre hybrid, in which the individual elements are never brought into harmony.
In the year 2030, half of the agriculturally usable Vietnamese mainland will be flooded by salt water. Many former farmers are now fishermen and nautical nomads. Sao (Quynh Hoa) and her husband Thi (Kim Long Thach) own such a flooded piece of land and are trying to defend it. When Thi is found drowned, Sao is sure that it was not an accident, as the doctors attested, but intentional murder. It quickly becomes clear that a multinational, for whom Sao's former lover Giang (Quy Binh) works on genetically modified seaweed, must be involved in the incident.
Watch Movies Online Nuoc" means "water". In “Nuoc (2030)” Vietnam is drawn in two ways in 2030. On the one hand, the salt water that has turned the farmers' land into shallow water; on the other, the scarcity of fresh water, which is only available to the Vietnamese residents through rain showers. In addition, living conditions are made more difficult by plagues of locusts and social brutality. The fact that a multinational private corporation is behind the breaking up of functioning social structures in Vietnam should not be a completely accidental vision of the future - beyond the widespread criticism of capitalism, filmmakers from Vietnam are after all still under the control of the communist party.
Despite panaroma and bird's-eye views - occasionally even a fisheye lens is used - Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo tells the social dystopia skilfully at the beginning from close to his characters and dispenses with excessive explanations. In the course of the plot, which is told in various episodes before the murder, after the murder and ten years earlier in 2020, he loses sight of any narrative rhythmic congruence. The staging is consistently inconsistent: sometimes in a quiet arthouse style, sometimes as an exciting thriller and at the end with outdated computer animations. Scenes alternate at will without the use of music and with thunderous classical music. The genre hybrid is increasingly falling apart because of its ambitious approach of combining thriller, romance and sophisticated science fiction.
Conclusion: “Nuoc (2030”) is an over-ambitious and moderately exciting mixture of genres.
This film is running in the program of the Berlinale 2014. An overview of all FILMSTARTS reviews from the 64th Berlin International Film Festival can be found HERE.