Children of the Mist (2021, Diem Ha Le)

Diem filmed young Di and her Hmong family for three years, but ends up focusing on one incident near the end of that period. Di goes off with a boy named Vang during the new year celebration, therefore he’s said to have “kidnapped” her and she is his bride – even though Di said before and after that it’s not what she intended. Diem gets involved with her subjects, speaks from behind the camera, has conversations, gets into rice paddy mudfights. I chuckled when she told Di that she’s done the wrong thing, since one of the highest compliments reviewers pay a film is that it’s not judgemental of its characters. The payoff of the director’s involvement in the story onscreen comes in the festival’s most harrowing moment. Vang’s family gets tired of negotiating and of Di’s refusals, and simply pick the girl up and carry her away kicking, as she looks back to the camera screaming for Diem to save her, instantly turning this from “portrait of a girl in a particular culture” or “child bride issues doc” into an emergency study in ethics. The misty mountains were very lovely, too. Living Hour opened again but picked up the tempo, and we calmed down after the movie at Cafe Poland with some pierogis and bigos (wow).