Can a camera caress water? Anh Hung Tran is a Vietnamese director whose slow delicate movies seem less stories than excuses to collect drops of leaves. I’ve now seen M?i du du xanh – L’odeur de la papaye verte (1993) (English is “The Scent of Green Papaya”) and Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000). In both the camera dwells on the textures of everyday life. Both take place in the outdoor kitchens where the women cook and wash in the many basins that seem to populate Tran’s movies. At times the camera moves across surfaces just to caress the painted wood as if we aren’t important, but our homes are fine landscapes for the closeup eye.
Could one build a site for moving textures? A Flickr for clips.