By John Corrado
In her debut feature Still Night, Burning House, Vietnamese-Canadian filmmaker Carol Nguyen looks inward, focusing on her own family’s history with grief and mental health. The film seeks to tell the story of her Uncle Thach, who was schizophrenic and died from suicide a decade ago, after jumping out a second story window believing his house was on fire.
Thach came to Canada in 1983, but faced mental health struggles and cultural barriers throughout his life. The film follows Nguyen as she travels back to Vietnam with her family, who are still haunted by his death. She not only seeks to better understand what her uncle went through, but also reconnect with her cousins, who were his daughters.
What unfolds is equal parts family therapy session, Vietnamese travelogue, and portrait of different cultural attitudes around mental health. Nguyen’s film finds the cinematic in the deeply personal material, and is beautifully shot by cinematographer Juliette Lossky, including some striking wide shots of the landscapes.
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