“The Vertical Ray of the Sun” is a beautiful, slow-moving film about love, relationships, and family. The story centers on the lives of three sisters, two of whom are married, and the youngest still single but living with their brother. The movie begins on the day of the sibling’s mother’s memorial, a day for the sisters and brother and their families to gather and celebrate their loved ones’ life with prayer and food. However, the happy extended family we see at the beginning of the film is quickly complicated by the borderline-incestuous relationship between the youngest brother and sister and pregnancy and infidelity issues arise in the older sisters’ marriages.
But like “The Scent of Green Papaya,” also directed by Tran Anh Hung, this film is perhaps less about the actual plot and more about specific scenes and instances that present slices of Vietnam to the viewer in lush, living color and sound. The song of the woman playing guitar in the family café at the beginning of the movie recurs through ought the film, coloring the scenes with a beautiful, haunting traditional sound. The close-up of the sisters cleaning the kitchen for their mothers’ memorial—laughing about the “disgusting things” women are allowed to and supposed to touch—shows the viewer, with humor, the closeness of this family’s women, representative of the close-knit Vietnamese family that cares for one another. Hanoi is beautifully showcased throughout the film, in the houses of the different families and the bustling café, and the country, where Suong (the oldest sister)’s husband meets his other family, is an island getaway of isolated beauty. Though the film can be hard to follow with the limited dialogue and attention to detail, it languor captivates, providing a sensuous look at Vietnam.
Link to trailer (Vietnamese): The Vertical Ray of the Sun
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