It
all starts like a Vietnamese Rebecca or
Jane Eyre, but the master’s late
first wife is not about to let any floozy marry her husband. He also happens to
be a Frenchman from a socially prominent family, in 1953 French Indochina. The naive
servant girl and the frog officer are quite an unlikely couple, but their
passion will not be denied, at least not by scandalized mortals in Derek Nguyen’s
deliciously gothic The Housemaid (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
Having
been orphaned and left homeless by the war (the French one), Linh travels
hundreds of miles from her village to apply for the only opening she has heard
of: the housemaid at the Sa Cat rubber plantation estate. However, there is a
reason the position has been vacant so long, which she learns only after
accepting housekeeper Ba Han’s probationary offer. Rumor has it, Sa Cat is
haunted the ghosts of the hundreds of workers killed by the plantation’s brutal
overseers. Even more ominously, the black clad ghost of Captain Sebastien
Laurent’s widow also stalks the grounds—and she is a jealous ghost.
Much
to the dismay of Mrs. Han, a powerful mutual-attraction develops between Linh
and Laurent while she nurses him following an unsuccessful assassination
attempt. However, it is safe to say from the supernaturally-charged in media
res prologue, their romance will not end well. Eventually, we will learn what
happened that fateful night, but Nguyen first rewinds to the beginning, as part
of the investigating officers’ interrogation.
It
is a shame the Vietnamese state film authorities hold perverse biases against
supernatural horror, much like their Mainland Chinese counterparts, because
they sure seem to have a knack for it, at least judging from The Housemaid. The nation also has a
taste for the genre, given its standing as Vietnam’s third highest grossing
film of all time, having somehow slipped past the censors. Some of the twists
and turns are not spectacularly original, but the atmosphere and settings are
to die for. This is one ominous looking manor house and the surrounding rubber
trees are as spooky as any of the forest locales in Twin Peaks (then or now).
Kate
Nhung is terrific as Linh, perfectly modulating her naivete, earthiness, and
yes, sensuality. Jean-Michel Richaud is a bit stiff as Laurent (in all
fairness, he spends at least half the film lying prone in bed), but he still
develops some believable chemistry with Nhung. Kim Xuan would do Mrs. Danvers
proud as the severely scoldy Mrs. Han, while Phi Phung turns some nice moments
as the shrewder-than-she-looks cook, Mrs. Ngo.