I still laugh when I recall that story my friend Florian told me about that rich Hanoi lady who named her two sons Louis and Vuitton...
No need to try understand why she did that...

Bách

New friend... it started with a GrabBike ride to one of my favourite spots in Saigon, Marou. The chocolate, you know...

The young driver was very friendly and talkative. He had left his hometown near Hanoi for the craziness of Saigon half a year ago. Working for a real estate agency and making ends meet by giving people rides across the city after work or during his off-time. Even if I am not to meet them again I enjoy those brief moments. Sometime we laugh a lot, sometime they give me a good scare so their reckless and wild is their driving, sometime they move me and sometime, well, it's just plain silence. 

As I got off the bike, I asked him whether he liked chocolate. Yes being the answer, I told him to wait for me and dashed into the shop to get him a tablet. He was very surprised and took a photo of both of us. Then came the exchange of contact. Facebook, naturally. 

Later on, he told me he was listening to my music and said he had eaten all the chocolate whilst talking to his girlfriend. 

We promised to meet again and we did. Yesterday evening, we had a bowl of phở. His treat, he insisted. I took him to another favourite place of mine, Cộng cafe. The first time he had the opportunity to go out and have a drink since he arrived in Saigon, he said. Conversation was lively and fun. He could be my son. I am his bigger brother, he said. Yes, and his mother is the same age as I. We're all doggies.
He told me the actually trained to be a sportsman. But 'reality' caught up and he decided to come to Saigon, where he stays with an uncle. "A very small flat, but I have my room" he added.
But obviously he was not very happy. "Far from my girlfriend... we call each other every day, of course"
I encouraged him to do what felt right for him. If it is sports, it'd be better to put his energy into what he likes instead of working like a slave and be a faceless presence in a big city...
"Nobody talked to me like that" he said, seemingly moved. 
"We all run after money. But my thought is that it is better to make a little less, and be with your girlfriend, and have a job that you truly like. Here, you have no life, and you're far away from home and your girlfriend"
He agreed. But to him it seemed undoable.
"And you know", I added, "you could open sportscenter in your town, and offer something different than usual clubs. You never know... I trust it can happen..."  

But this unexpected encounter realy lit up my day. I have a new friend! Bách, his name is. I'm glad for this and wish Bách all the best in life.

When time came to go back home, Bách offered to give me a ride. "This time NOT as a Grab driver!" 

Arrival in Bangkok!!! It has been seven years. Seven years that seem to have flashed by and het left a deep trail behind.
The joy of the arrival quickly led to a big question mark: where was I to go? The plane had been delayed, a driver was supposed to pick me up but went back when he found out there was no Mr. Ton That at the airport. Ash faced an emergency and had to fly back to Vietnam for two days that weekend. I sat down on a bench, whilst exchanging messages with Ash to sort out a a way to go to the hotel where I was to stay. She was furious with her assistant who didn't seem to care about anything. "And on top of that, she is so rude! When I ask her to do certain tasks, she replies to me that so and so could do them as well. She's new and only does things according to her whim!" I found the situation a bit comical. Anyway, I was in Bangkok, so everything was fine!
Initially, I thought that it could be nice to stay in town and go to the studio every morning. Gob had even offered me to stay at his place as he was away. However, his flat was at the other end of the city, and Ash hinted that it would take me hours to come and go back. I had vaguely seen on a map that the metro line was being extended and serving new stations in the studio's area, but failed to notice that  highly crucial detail that those new stations were not yet finished! I quickly abandonned the idea and made it known - to the assistant, that I would stay at the same hotel as Ash and Roman. Instead, I asked to extend my stay by one week to enjoy Bangkok after our week doing the sound mixing. 
After some time, a driver eventually came to pick me up at the airport. Early flight in the morning, sleepy An in the afternoon! I dozed on and off, barely recognising the sights of a fast-changing city I had not seen for several years.

Roman came to meet me after I had made myself comfortable at the hotel. It was past lunch time, but the cook had left some food aside for us. I had never met Roman before. I only knew from Ash that he was a terrific sound recordist/mixer. "Award-winning soundman!" Ash wrote to me months earlier. Out of curiosity, I did some research and found out that he had done the sound for a few Naomi Kawase films, as well as Timbuktu. Among the Kawase collaboration, there was one in particular that I really liked, Still the Water. Unsurprisingly, but to illustrate how everything is connected, I was very sensitive to the sound in the film. I have no recollection of the music, but the sound had this sensuality and... musicality that I find rare in film. And as I was composing the score for The Third Wife, there was, somewhere in the back of my mind, the sound of Still the Water.
I saw a tall and blue-eyed man coming to meet me at the end of the alley. There was a communicative quietness and calmness about him which I instantly appreciated.
We discussed a little during lunch and decided to load and roughly edit all the music before Ash came back from Saigon. Roman showed me the studio where we were to spend the next week. It was as large as a movie theatre! The sight of the sound board was already impressive in itself. "It may look like a spaceship, but we will only use the middle part of it!" Roman said when he saw me looking from one end of the board to the other.
The music preparation took less time than we expected and we had the afternoon of the next day - a Sunday, free. It was a perfect opportunity to have a little walk in the centre of the city!
Now we are ready for the big work!

Early rise after just two hours of sleep to go to Amandine's place for the pre-editing session of my short film 'Yet Untitled'. 

Very exciting to see the film slowly take shape. 

But I hope tonight won't be a sleepless night again...

Uống cà phê sữa đá trua này mắt mở cả đêm...

And this heat....

Filming 'Yet Untitled'

Yet Untitled... It isn't too soon that four days before the deadline of the short-film submission, I finally have the full cast! 

A little boy, a young woman, a man, a dancer.

The dancer's scenes were the first to be shot, in Saigon, in that old French building near the river, apparently the French soldiers' sleeping quarters. Wonderful Sùng A Lùng's dancing... 

The scenes with the young woman were shot yesterday, with Hsu Paulina. I found her through a friend's friend. A quiet and very talented photographer in her own right.
The young man is a young waiter who works at ight in the 101 Tower area. He has a tough look but a deep expression. I was having a drink after the shooting with Amandine and Paulina and saw him. Amandine approached him for me and asked whether he would be interested to feature in a short film. I was so glad when he accepted! I no longer knew what to do!
Today I finally found the little boy: Lex, the young son of Lisa's. I had an older boy in mind, the son of a friend of Aurélien's who appeared in a short film and had this rare mix of intensity and innoncence. But his school schedule and his difficult mother made it impossible to find a day for the shooting.
I recently had dinner with Lisa wo warned me that I would have to cope with her three monsters offsprings. I actually found them very fun and lively. "Because it;s your first time", Lisa said. "It's a different story on a daily basis!". Of course, a mother knows best. Lex was sitting next to me during dinner and commenting on his sibbling's antics. He later told his mother that he was very happy to know me. I had not thought of Lex until now. But it totally made sense. And we had a good connection. It's a wild bet, but I feel Lex willbe perfect playing the artist as a child...

70% of the film is already shot, fortunately. 

Pre-editing tomorrow. The two tracks by Sakamoto are also selected. How many times have I listened to his album async...

Things one thinks about when reaching a certain stage in life...
As a child, all I could do was to dream and grow my inner world in order to survive a real world I had to abide every day.

I had always known that artistic creation was my calling. But everything was blurry in my head. The connection between the two world was invisible and intangible. Only when I was on stage playing music or at home making those little theatre plays with my brother and my cousins, did I truly feel alive and aligned with myself. The rest of the time, I was in limbo.

Now, as I'm shooting the remaining scenes for this first short film as a director, I can't help but rejoicing at the notion that it is no longer an distant, unreachable dream. If there is one thing I have always protected and cherished, it is that belief, however unreasonable to so many people, that those dreams were to eventually materialise. The big part of it is hard work and perseverance, and the part is pure magic - or alignment of the stars, whatever else that one cannot command.

That's what I am tring to express in Yet Untitled. 

The final title could be [Life] Yet Untitled.

So I'm still trying to finish Yet Untitled for the deadline of September 30th. If I don't manage, it is fine all the same. Le principal est de participer!

A sequence of images for an idea of the mood and the feel of the film - or what it will / can be. I tried to play some Sakamoto tracks on the footage and it works beautifully...

More shooting in the coming days. Gắng sức, gắng sức!!! Go go go!

I think... I have finished the music for the end credits of The Third Wife. It may be a little long. Six minutes twenty seconds... I had to let it out the way it came to me...  Then it will always be possible to edit it. But I think I have it....

I think...

... and the keenest ear will perhaps catch a cello line in the by me in the midst of sounds and layers. He he!