Update · THE THIRD WIFE

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Wednesday, May 15 – Tuesday, May 28

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ASH MAYFAIR

Born and raised in Vietnam, Ash Mayfair has drawn upon her familial historical past (each grandmother and great-grandmother had been in organized marriages at a younger age) to create the fictional 19th century drama of 14-year-old May, who turns into the third spouse of an older man. With a largely feminine solid and crew, THE THIRD WIFE portrays the strictures of patriarchy, the principles by which a girl can achieve a point of status and energy (because the mom of a son), and the results any deviance will engender. But most of all, it is a story of emotional bonding amongst three generations of girls, in a setting that’s each exquisitely stunning and painfully repressive. As with the lives of Chinese concubines in RAISE THE RED LANTERN, the ostensible consolation and class of this world of girls is each richly seductive and fearfully toxic.

VIETNAM   2018   96 MINS.   IN VIETNAMESE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES   FILM MOVEMENT

Reviews

“Supremely atmospheric. Sensuously elegant drama. (A) refined critique of patriarchal culture. Making exquisite use of natural light… (the graceful score adds to the ambience with its delicate strings and, in the final stretch, foreboding piano notes. The visuals are at their most potent, however, when enhanced by Edouard Morin’s layered sound design. A finely detailed and quietly devastating tapestry, where rare moments of genuine intimacy are intensely experienced. Achieves a powerful universal resonance.”
– John Berra, Screen International

“THE THIRD WIFE holds our unbroken concentration for its duration, its elegiac reverence capturing our attention with its contextually heavy pans and gorgeous frames deftly telling us where to look through sheer compositional perfection.”
– Jared Mobarak, The Film Stage

“Gorgeously intimate, evocative, and melancholy. Though it’s almost painterly, in the pellucid watercolor palette of DP Chananun Chotrungroj’s glistening bamboo-green, aloe-scented imagery, and authentic to its period setting down to the quietest silken detail, by focusing with unwavering empathy on the interior life of teenage bride May (Nguyen Phuong Tra My), the remarkable THE THIRD WIFE feels newborn and ineffably modern. This is the rare debut that derives its freshness not from inexperience but from a balance between compassion and restraint that most filmmakers take decades to achieve. A film so sensuous we can lose ourselves in it, but so vividly real we might also be able to find ourselves there.”
– Jessica Kiang, Variety

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