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MacDonald:
Was the objection some people had to
Naked Spaces
the fact that it is less overtly feminist than
Reassemblage,
that it doesn't put the role of women in African cultures in the foreground as obviously as the earlier film.
Trinh:
I don't think so. The most obvious problem people have with
Naked Spaces
is the length. The notion of time and of duration are worked on in a way that makes the experience quite excruciating for some. Time not only as the result of editing, but time made apparent within the frame itself by the camera's slow unstable movement across people and their spaces, by the quiescence and contemplative quality of many of the scenes shown, and moreover by the lack of a central story line or guiding message. Moviegoers do not mind sitting a couple of hours for a narrative feature. But to go through two hours and fifteen minutes of a nonaction film with no love story, no violence, and "no sex" (as a viewer reminded me) is a real trial for many and a "far out," unforgettable experience for others. It was important for me, on the one hand, to bring back a notion of time in Africa that never failed to frustrate foreigners eager to consume the culture at a time-is-money pace (one of them warned a newcomer: "You need immense, unlimited patience here!
Nothing is happening!"
). On the other hand, it was also critical to bring about a different way of experiencing film.
Some of the objections to
Naked Spaces
also have to do with the fact that certain viewers prefer the overt politics of
Reassemblage
.
Naked Spaces
seems to appeal to people who are aware of the predicament of dwelling in modern society and are tuned to the inseparable questions of aesthetics, spirituality, sociality, and environment. I have had, for example, intense and exalted feedback from a few native-American viewers. I could never have anticipated this when I made the film.
For a while, I didn't quite know how to locate some of the hostilities toward
Surname Viêt Given Name Nam,
although in making it, I was well aware of the risks that it was taking and the kind of difficulties it might encounter. Now that I have participated in more public debates on the film than I could ever have wished, I can identify two kinds of viewers who have problems with it. Actually, the problems are fundamentally related. These are the viewers who either feel antagonistic toward the feminist struggle, or are simply unaware of its complexities in relation to other struggles of liberation. Many of these viewers may think of themselves as pro-feminist, but they are not really into the feminist struggle, and this slips out in the questions they raise, in the lack of concern they show for any earnest inquiry into gender politics.
There are other viewers who identify themselves as belonging to the antiwar movement and who do not really see
women in Surname Viêt
(just as many male radicals in the sixties could not take seriously their female