Sometimes, just surviving is remarkable.
The short documentary, Lẽ Sống, looks closely at what it takes to make a simple, honest living in the Mekong Delta and posits that the resilience and sacrifices of the region's women foster hope for society's future.
Lẽ Sống focuses on the daily lives of two women in Vĩnh Long Province: Nhã, a single mother who provides for her daughter by running a phở restaurant; and Thuý, a businesswoman who sells fish in the local market. Both invite the filmmakers to their homes and places of work, where they offer matter-of-fact descriptions of their daily routines, past struggles, motivations, and aspirations for their families.
The details Nhã and Thuý share about shrewd business practices, admiration for education and family, endurance in the face of poverty, and communal kindness resonate because the views represent those of many women in the Mekong Delta, and Vietnam generally. Certainly, we all have friends, neighbors, relatives or simply familiar faces in our neighborhood who have similar experiences. But it's not often we encounter such open and well-edited portraits. The 14 minutes we spend with the two women affords viewers a chance to understand better the commonplace actions that aren't often dwelt upon but reveal a strength worth celebrating.
The film is the passion project of Huy Phạm and Mike Abela, made for no money beyond the daily logistics budget. The pair of California-based friends have done similar projects in the past, including 2015 looks at a hột vịt lộn vendor in Saigon and the a woman who sells bún riêu in Cần Thơ's floating market. When sharing their latest work with Saigoneer, Huy noted: “Mike and I used to sit in his apartment watching Anthony Bourdain and wishing we could go to Vietnam and do something like that. We enjoy the culture and the people so much.”
