Chronicle of a Tape Recorded Over

Directed by

Nguyễn Trinh Thi

Using ‘exquisite corpse’, a method by which each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, the filmmaker began her journey over the Vietnam War’s notorious Ho Chi Minh Trail. This interconnected system of jungle roads connecting the North with the South was instrumental for the eventual victory of the Vietnamese communists from the North over the American-backed Southern regime in 1975. Tens of thousands of people died along this trail during the war as it was heavily bombed by the American army. Along these roads, the filmmaker asked local villagers to contribute their tales while the camera was observing their present-day life, merging past with present, reality with fiction, in her effort to assemble a piece of collective history, a history told by the people from the bottom up.