RETELL, RECALL AND RECONSTRUCT: FROM COMMUNITY MEMORIES TO ECOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN VIETNAMESE CINEMA THROUGH THE CONTEMPORARY ADAPTATIONS OF NGUYEN NHAT ANH’S WORKS

Abstract

With the personal love stories and the ordinary landscapes of the countryside or schools from the 1990s, Nguyen Nhat Anh’s (NNA) works provide new spiritual sustenance, promptly meeting the needs of the public in post-war Vietnam. As best-selling books for many years, NNA’s works were adapted sporadically from 1990 to 2005 (the economic-cultural opening and intense urbanization) and were selected for filming continuously from 2015 to the present (the period of severe degradation of the natural environment during globalization). The second phase of filming NNA’s stories reveals that the beautiful, nostalgic movies featuring pristine native natural landscapes serve not only as a reconnection for readers of the 1980s and 1990s but also as a reconstruction of community memories, contributing to the process of ecological education for the new generation. In this paper, we aim to explore how and why NNA-adapted films have become a method of creating collective memories, recalling a “lost green paradise” of Vietnam in the post-socialist era. We will also examine the special role of cinema in fostering environmental awareness among the young public in Vietnam.