海边归来的男子

A special story with a blurry line between reality and the surreal, humanity and the spirit,[Here...or There?] is an experimental piece open to multiple interpretations. The setting is a small Vietnamese seaside town. The daily lives of a retired couple seem peaceful. On a day the husband goes fishing, he impulsively jumps into the ocean and goes swimming. The fishing boat returns to land without him, and the wife worries about her husband, who doesn’t come home that night. The next day, the man returns from the water wearing a suit and with a friend and a woman he has cast for his movie. At home, he enjoys a merry dinner with the townspeople. The spirit of a dead ancestor whose altar was in their home also joins them for dinner, but no one is surprised and just treats it as a living person. Later, as though nothing has happened, normal life resumes. Was it all a dream? Or is the story trying to tell us that our reality and surreality coexist? The director’s message is ambiguity itself.