Poet - screenwriter Nguyen Thi Hong Ngát: Writing to repay Nghe An

Dear Ms. Hong Ngát, what makes you always full of energy and happy like that?

Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat:It's very simple! Think positively and find a job that you love and are passionate about, you will be happy and motivated. Whatever makes you tired, you have to find a way to get rid of it immediately. I have a habit of not storing negative things in my head, it's very frustrating, it doesn't solve anything and makes you more tired. Look at things in a positive way, everything will go smoothly.

Poet - screenwriter Nguyen Thi Hong Ngát. Photo: NVCC

It can be said that your life is now very peaceful, happy, successful, your children and grandchildren are grown up and especially your husband, an exemplary scientist, a husband who loves his wife very much. You have been with your husband - scientist Phan Hong Giang (pen name of Doctor of Science Nguyen Duc Han - the second son of literary critic Hoai Thanh) for more than 30 years, are you really happy? Nghe An men are very patriarchal, principled but also very thoughtful, for the family. Is Doctor Phan Hong Giang the same?

Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat:I have to affirm this, although we do not have children together, for over 30 years, my husband and I have been extremely happy. My husband is a scientist, I am an artist, our jobs are different but we complement each other, helping each other live with the same passion. My husband loves my children and grandchildren like his own flesh and blood, he is the father who has guided my children's careers. I am happy because he understands my very "manly" personality, because I am very decisive, I do what I say. He is from Nghe An but has a deep personality, very yielding while I am very hot-tempered and decisive. I am a daughter-in-law of Nghe An but I cannot be gentle. I am satisfied with my life, it is true that after decades of living with him, I have flourished in love and career. My husband is not patriarchal, not difficult, on the contrary, he is very gentle, very indulgent. He pampers his children and grandchildren very much, it is terrible. I admire him for his intelligence and gentle, decent behavior, always gentle.

Returning to your career, you have been involved with cinema almost all your life and poetry is also an indispensable part of your life. Do you compose poetry and write scripts at the same time?

Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat:I started writing poetry when I was eighteen or twenty, writing poetry as a need to express my inner life, with poetic feelings of first love. It was a difficult but passionate time, very beautiful, worth living! I also loved passionately and had a strong desire to live, I wrote a lot during those years and expressed my feelings completely and fully. Poetry collections from the 70s and 80s of the last century, such as "Trai cam vang" (1973), "Thom huong mai toc" (1982), "Nho va khat" (1984), "Ngoi nha sau con bao" (1990), "Tho tinh loc" (1996)... are important milestones in my life, everything in my inner life, I put into poetry. As for cinema, I write scripts as if I owe them, they encapsulate so many struggles with life. The colorful aspects of reality are fully exploited and cinema has captured reality directly and fully.

Poet - screenwriter Nguyen Thi Hong Ngát speaks at the press conference of the Vietnam Cinema Association - Kite Awards 2017. Photo: Internet

Do you remember the script “Looking Out to the Sea”, you wrote about President Ho Chi Minh when he was 20 years old, studying at the National School in Hue, then teaching in Phan Thiet and then boarding a ship to go abroad, wandering to find a way to save the country. When you started writing this script, did you encounter any difficulties? Can you tell us some memories about this memorable film?

Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat:The Propaganda Department launched a writing campaign about President Ho Chi Minh and the two resistance wars against the French and the Americans. So, as a daughter-in-law of Nghe An, why don't I write about him? Moreover, everyone loves and respects President Ho Chi Minh, especially artists and writers, all want to write about something, a certain period of his life...

The most difficult part when I wrote the script for this film was finding materials. The script revolves around the period from 1908 to 1910, when Nguyen Tat Thanh was only eighteen or twenty years old. From a student at the Hue National School, Nguyen Tat Thanh was forced to drop out of school because he volunteered to be an interpreter for farmers and merchants in a protest against the high taxes imposed by the French colonialists and the feudal government. Nguyen Tat Thanh left Hue and traveled throughout the South Central region, living with the people and witnessing the miserable lives of the people under the yoke of French colonialism. After that, he went to Phan Thiet to teach at Duc Thanh School. From Phan Thiet, he took a fish sauce trading ship to Saigon, leaving a letter for his students and colleagues, Nguyen Tat Thanh began another journey on the path to finding the truth of his life: Finding a way to save the country. The image of a boat on the ocean at the end of the book and appearing simultaneously in the film is a beautiful symbol of the aspirational twenties of the young man Nguyen Tat Thanh. I tried to write in a very simple, everyday language. The early life of President Ho Chi Minh when he was 18 years old, I thought it had to be pure and beautiful like that. In the imagination of the scriptwriter, I based it on real events and combined it with my imagination with the film crew to make a complete film. So I set myself that task and I researched the documents of that period. Once I had set it, and an idea came up to write about a period, I focused on researching the documents of that period. I read “Blue Lotus” by writer Son Tung. And I “took” his documents during the period when Uncle Ho was expelled from Quoc Hoc Hue.

When starting to adapt it into a film, the film crew led by director Vu Chau and I planned in detail for each scene, from the main actors to supporting actors, extras, props, costumes... The film was filmed in Hue and Hoi An. "Looking Out to the Sea" does not have many grand settings, but it is quite elaborate because it had to completely recreate the scenery, props, and costumes of the early 20th century.At that time, when we started working, of course, filming was very difficult, filming for 2 months, from Hue to Son Tra peninsula, to get the roads to make the routes that Uncle Ho traveled... Back then, people traveled by horse, there were no cars. Those are memorable memories when making the film "Looking Out to the Sea" about President Ho Chi Minh in a short but quite important period, creating major turning points in his life.

The unforgettable impressions of screenwriter Nguyen Thi Hong Ngát on the script “Looking Out to the Sea” from the beginning to the completion of the film and its resonance in the Vietnamese cinema industry, are a whole process of tireless, passionate artistic creation, forgetting to eat and sleep. Do you have any plans to write a script about Nghe An?

Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat:No longer a plan, I have finished writing a film script about Nghe An, the documentary "550 years - Land and people of Nghi Loc", this is a land with a lot of fate for me, it is my husband's hometown. The place I have been returning to for more than 30 years and am familiar with, I owe this land, this people. The film script has been approved and is starting to be filmed, Vietnam Feature Film Studio led by director Nguyen Duc Viet and the film crew have been in Nghi Loc, Nghe An filming for a whole week now. I am very happy that in my life, I have made a film about the hometown I am attached to, I was almost 70 years old when I was able to do it. At this age, I still like to write, want to write and carry out plans that have not been done, I will have to do them. The film about Nghi Loc for me is a way for me to repay that favor.

Nguyen Thi Hong Ngát and her husband -Scientist Phan Hong Giang(pen name of Doctor of Science Nguyen Duc Han - second son of literary critic Hoai Thanh)Photo: NVCC

When writing the documentary about your hometown Nghi Loc, what moved you the most?

Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat:Humanity! The humanity of Nghe An is very deep. I love my husband and married him because of this quality. Nghe An people in general and Nghi Loc people in particular are very affectionate, always faithful and loyal. This quality has entered literature. I read the works of famous writers and poets in the great families in Nghi Loc such as Nguyen Duc (Nghi Trung), my husband's family, or Nguyen Xi (Nghi Hop)... which are the cradles of heroes and writers. I am very proud and respectful!

Is it true that the love of Nghe An people made you write such emotional and imaginative verses in the poem "My Hometown"?

Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat: (laugh)“...The pickled eggplant is also salty, the path of fate/ The people from the countryside are gentle/ Will my life be able to repay/ The rain on the Cam River is endless/ Whose hand holds the golden orange of the past/... Ginger is not a bother/ My hometown is salty, now it is your hometown”.I wrote this poem decades ago, attached to Nghi Loc since I first became a daughter-in-law in Nghe An. The poem speaks for my heart, it becomes more and more profound.

With a sensitive, passionate, ardent, passionate soul and above all a strong vitality, loving life and people like you, do you believe you will continue to create for a long time?

Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat:Yes! As long as we are alive, we will continue to write, travel and find inspiration for our work. Next week, I will return to Nghe An to interview some characters for the film. There are still many things waiting for me. The important thing is the spirit, be positive and happy! Everything comes to us more easily than we think.

Sincere thanks to poet and screenwriter Nguyen Thi Hong Ngát for this interesting and open conversation.