Ru Highlights Francophone Diversity via Alliance Française de Seattle

Seattle has had a longstanding connection with the Francophone world. As one of the top 15 most common non-English languages spoken among Seattle residents, French is a vital part of the city. The Alliance Française de Seattle is a local nonprofit that serves as one of the central hubs for both language instruction and Francophone cultural events and programming, and has been doing so since 1987.

On March 12, AFdS hosted a screening of the 2023 film Ru at Northwest Film Forum. The event was co-sponsored by the Québec Government Office, which opened a new delegation in Seattle this year. The delegation, which is “tasked with developing and strengthening Québec’s political and institutional relations in the American Pacific Northwest,” will serve the states of Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

Parlor inside Northwest Film Forum (not where Ru was screened).

The Evergreen Echo

Ru is an adaptation of Kim Thúy’s 2009 novel of the same name by Canadian director Charles-Olivier Michaud. The film follows Tinh (Chloé Djandji), a young girl from a wealthy Saigon family who becomes a refugee with the fall of Saigon in 1975. Tinh escapes Vietnam with her parents, Nguyen (Chantal Thuy) and Minh (Jean Bui) and her two brothers, Duc (Xavier Nguyen) and Quôc (Olivier Dinh). The family first lands at a refugee camp in Malaysia before embarking on a dangerous boat passage with a final destination of Granby, Québec. As she settles into her new life in Canada, Tinh experiences everything from culture shock and PTSD to friendship and mentorship.

Ru is not an easy watch. Despite centering on a child’s point of view, it presents an unflinching look at the traumatic consequences of war and displacement. Even towards the end, when Tinh and her family are beginning to feel more at home in Québec, Michaud lingers on unresolved and complicated emotions. In one scene close to the end of the film, Tinh asks her mother what she wants in life—the first time Nguyen has been asked this question the whole film—and she breaks down into tears. Soon the rest of her family spill into the room, distracting Tinh, but we sit with Nguyen for a moment, seeing in her face that she wishes her life could be different. Nonetheless, she is doing what needs to be done.

Ru is a fascinating exploration of Francophone identity and its inconsistencies. Tinh and her family are connected to the Québec locals through language, but very little else. Despite understanding everything her Canadian friends say to her, Tinh rarely speaks, and chooses to stay quiet and observant. In one gutting moment, one of her teachers asks if she or her classmates would like to share any memories of life in Vietnam. One of the first times Tinh has openly referenced her former life, she recreates the sound of a woman selling bread who moments later was killed. The film intentionally creates sharp contrasts to amplify the feeling of culture shock. For one, we only see Québec in the depths of winter, but these frigid scenes are frequently set jarringly against flashbacks to hot, humid nights in the refugee camp or in the claustrophobic hull of the ship.

Michaud definitely has a reverence for his hometown and the subtle beauty of it, even in the bleakest season. In one scene, Tinh loses her friend while out snowshoeing. Instead of panicking, she sits down at the base of a giant pine and looks up, and the only sound we hear is the soft groans of trees and water dripping from the trees into the snow. A friend from Montréal who attended the screening even recognized one of the bookstores in the film.

As an adaptation of a novel based on the author’s real experience, Ru is also about the search for how to tell one’s own story. One of Tinh’s new friends is a man who works at the same restaurant as her father. He tells her he wrote down an entire book, word-for-word, on a single sheet of paper, continually erasing it and writing the next page and keeping it all in his head. He encourages Tinh to write her own story. Djandji plays Tinh with such a captivating screen presence. Intense, observant, and her face often tinged with worry, she is the perfect narrator for this sensitive and gripping film. 

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AFdS’s cultural programming continued this month. The organization hosted a Young French Cinema series celebrating women directors at SIFF the weekend of March 21-23. In other Francophone news, on March 23, Seattle Center Festál hosted a French Fest at the Armory Food & Event Hall.