Ici...ou là bas? | here...or there?
Official selection in 16th Busan International Film Festval, New Currents, 2011
The Synopsis
A retired couple, she is Asian, he is European, both are filmmakers in their sixties, living modestly in Viet-Nam, in a simple house in a fishermen’s hamlet.
Early one morning the man takes his fishing rod and heads off on his motorcycle along the waterfront road to the small fishing port. He climbs onto a boat and heads off to the open waters. Without any luck to catch fish, he decides to go for a swim. While in the water the boat heads back, leaving him alone in the open sea.
Slowly the man drowns, soon to die when night falls, confused by images coming to his mind.
Meanwhile, during the day, his wife gone through her daily occupations. Towards evening she begins to worry, goes to the harbor and questions the fishermen who swear that they didn’t have her husband on board but that the security guard stopped him. She goes to the guard’s office and he denies having stopped her husband. He says that he saw the man aboard the fishing boat. She returns home distraught and goes to bed in a state of agitation.
The next morning at dawn, the man, wearing a suit and necktie, steps out of the sea, and walks home. Completely soaked, he lays down beside his sleeping wife.
Unable to see her husband who is joined by other « ghosts » from the family altar. She makes various telephone calls and learns that her husband is seeing a friend, owner of a massage parlor.
She invites « everybody » for a party.
The man explains to his friend that he needs an extra for his film. He requires a beautiful body. The friend presents him several women to choose for the part.
The man, his friend and the girl leave the massage salon, get into a car and head off to the party organized by the man’s wife.
The meal is lively. They are all present: the friend, the three fishermen, the massage girl, the neighbor, the security-guard, the lady owner of the pub, and finally, coming from the altar, three ghosts join them. The ex husband joins the man, talking of the time he was alive and lived with the wife....
Everyone makes comments and gives his opinion on whether or not the man has slept with the young girl. All of a sudden, the young girl reveils a secret. The situation turns around.
