People's Artist Dao Trong Khanh is a shining face in the Vietnamese documentary film industry. As a specialist in writing commentary for famous art documentaries such as Hanoi in Whose Eyes, Kind Stories, 1/50 Seconds of Life..., Dao Trong Khanh with his subtle, profound and straightforward film commentary has won over viewers not only in Vietnam.
Where did Dao Trong Khanh's great successes in cinema come from?
In my opinion, it was because Dao Trong Khanh "came out" as a poet, a poet with tender, touching and quite modern poems from the years of fighting against the US in Hai Phong. At that time, his poetic pen name was Dao Nguyen. I still remember after nearly 60 years, some very good verses of Dao Nguyen, in a poem whose name I have forgotten, written about Hai Phong, printed in the Van Nghe newspaper and then printed in the 3-year anti-US poetry collection published by the Literature Publishing House, around 1967:
"…Thuong Ly sent the person off, white clouds across the sky
The place where you hold my arms is where enemy bullets are fired from.
I still look at the vast blue sea..."
Writing about Hai Phong at the exact time when American bombs were dropped day and night on the port city, writing with such a loving, private, and dreamy voice, while Northern poetry still leaned toward the common and common civic feelings, that poet was not ordinary!
People's Artist Dao Trong Khanh
There is a painter who remembers this poem by Dao Nguyen:
"I used to drift like a sail
Now I have become the old port
In the past, I used to cast nets to catch strange fish.
Now the fish are dried - the net is torn.
Come on, swim, dried sardines!
I will drop you into the water.
Find me back the lost days
Where is the eternal silence at the bottom?
(Tam Bac Ferry - Wishing Alone)
I also did not expect, after a number of years of peace, to read the "poetry" of Dao Nguyen - who had taken the real name Dao Trong Khanh - through documentary films, through poetic comments, a poetry that is both refined and rough about life. When poets switch to composing other genres, they have strengths that non-poets find difficult to have. That is the sensitivity, the depth of figurative thinking, the surprises of association... Bringing the strengths of poetry into art documentaries is truly... enlightening. Dao Trong Khanh's films, especially when he co-wrote them with director Tran Van Thuy, are both sharp and humane, both current and containing profound messages, both for everyone and as a message to intellectuals about the character and responsibility of "scholars" today.
The name of People's Artist Dao Trong Khanh in the genera of the film Hanoi in Whose Eyes
I think Dao Trong Khanh is a scholar of Bac Ha, a modern scholar, an authoritative spokesperson from the art of documentary films, a person who is always innocent and erudite, always giving his all through each comment, each film. And I see, through the image of that film director, the shadow of a poet of the "Hai Phong poetry school" from the distant war years. Over the years, Dao Trong Khanh, despite his old age, has still worked hard, traveled hard, and felt hard. Although deep down in his heart, Dao Trong Khanh suppressed a pain that those who knew him and played with him shared with pity. Life and fate are still not so fair to those with heart and talent.
Once, poet Nguyen Thuy Kha and I sat with Dao Trong Khanh at a small restaurant in the Forbidden Food Street, we could still drink strong alcohol, and it was really fun. We only talked about poetry, even though Khanh was now famous for his art documentaries. Poetry still pursued us, or vice versa, deep in our hearts, we still pursued poetry, worshiped poetry, like in the old days.
Farewell, my great friend!
" WRITING POEMS WITH CINEMATOGRAPHY IMAGES"
Meritorious Artist Dinh Xuan Dung still remembers the time in the 1980s when he made films with People's Artist Dao Trong Khanh. At that time, Mr. Dung was a newly graduated cinematographer, while Mr. Khanh was already a famous documentary filmmaker. Mr. Dung filmed two of Mr. Khanh's films: 1/50 Seconds of Life and Keeping in Sight. The first film was about photographer Vo An Ninh and an old-fashioned camera with a recording speed of 1/50 seconds. The next film Keeping in Sight expanded the stories from Mr. Vo An Ninh into real life. "We filmed in Sa Pa the scene where Mr. Vo An Ninh was lying down waiting to take a photo on the grass. Mr. Khanh asked me to take a shot like a ray of sunlight. It was a ray shining down, following that ray of sunlight to where Mr. Vo An Ninh was hiding in the reeds to take a photo. The shot was not too long, but it made an impression. Or the time we filmed at Trong Mai island (Sam Son, Thanh Hoa), he asked me to take a shot like these two islands were kissing, how to make it feel like the two islands were moving, kissing, with the sun sandwiched in between," Mr. Dung said.
For Mr. Dung, People's Artist Dao Trong Khanh is a documentary filmmaker who is sensitive when it comes to suggesting images, and the images are also very poetic. "I went filming with him, and it was clear that he wanted to make a poem using cinematic images. He is a poet, a close friend of Luu Quang Vu, so his comments are very poetic," said Mr. Dung. The first film Mr. Dung made with Mr. Khanh later won 2 Golden Lotus awards at the 1985 film festival.
Mr. Dao Trong Khanh made many documentaries. He believed that documentary cinema requires an eye for history as well as the rhythm of life and the heart. Therefore, he devoted himself to making films that he was still moved by when he looked back on them, such as The Destruction, The Road to Battle... Later, he confided: "There were characters who lived with me yesterday, who took shelter in the same bunker; yet, the next day, they went to the artillery site, and in the blink of an eye, they became people who lived forever in the film! The rhythm of life of the nation had such a heroic and tragic time!"
With the same way of finding the rhythm of life, Mr. Khanh was also the first person to make a film about agricultural contracts. He was even the first person to make a film about agricultural contracts. He said he made a "secret contract" film because he understood the lives of coastal farmers in his hometown Hai Phong.
Trinh Nguyen
People's Artist Dao Trong Khanh received the State Prize with the following works: 1/50 Seconds of Life, Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh, Tra Kieu Dancer, Truthful Legend, Ancestor's Shadow; Ho Chi Minh - His Image . However, there is another famous documentary film that also bears his image: Hanoi in Whose Eyes . In the genera of this film, his name is first, followed by Mr. Luu Xuan Thu, followed by director Tran Van Thuy. Mr. Dung said that according to the convention at that time, the order of names in the genera of documentary films was scriptwriter and director.
Trinh Nguyen
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