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Cyclo (1995)

A review by Damian Cannon.
Copyright © Movie Reviews UK 1997
In the mayhem of Saigon, the theft of a young man's cyclo pedicab leads to tragic and unpredictable consequences. For the desperate poor of this anarchic city, with its enormous contrasts between those on top and those underfoot, every day is the same struggle. The cyclo (Le Van Loc) spends all day pedalling in the hunt for passengers, before returning to the home that he shares with his two sisters and grandfather. Since his parents are long dead (mother in childbirth and father in an auto accident) every member of the family is forced to work. Grandfather (Le Dinh Huy) repairs tyres (back-breaking labour for an old man), younger sister (Pham Ngoc Lieu) shines shoes after school and older sister (Tran Nu Yen Khe) carries water for the market. Even then their shack is all of two rooms, open to the elements and their neighbours, squashed against more of the same. The cyclo is employed by the Boss Lady (Nguyen Nhu Quynh), who owns the cyclo and allows him to keep 5000 dong of his daily takings (while holding onto a hefty 200,000 dong deposit).

She has a retarded son (Bjuhoang Huy) of the same age, but that doesn't seem to help much when his pedicab is stolen and he gets beaten. Reporting the theft he is told to accompany one of her associates, a mysterious heavy known as Poet (Tony Leung-Chiu Wai), to a hideaway. Along the way he sees one of the men who stole his vehicle heading towards the Boss Lady, although his observation is soon quashed by Poet. In a bare room with dangerous wiring he is isolated and trained towards a new career in crime, which doesn't look so bad since it could be a good money earner. After early success in simple operations, such as fire-bombing a rival cyclo garage, he asks to join the gang proper. This seems a bit presumptuous though since the gang takes him to see Mr.Lullaby, so-called because he softly sings to his victims as he punctures their throats. The cyclo isn't deterred by this and promotion occurs.

Meanwhile Poet is leading a second life as a pimp, under which guise he recruits the cyclo's older sister (presumably because the family need the money with the cyclo effectively disappearing). Naive in her innocence, Poet becomes rather protective of her virtue (strangely for a prostitute) and only hires her to special customers, such as the middle-aged man who likes watching her urinate. It's far removed from carrying water in the market yet she seems unaffected by her situation, while the cyclo is simply unaware (even though his room is across the road from hers). Soon he is prepared for his first killing, being given a gun and some pills to help him through it. With the New Year coming, street celebrations are brewing and a feeling of expectancy hangs in the humid, stifling air.

Evoking an incredible atmosphere of chaos, helter-skelter activity which seems to follow no law, the strength of Cyclo lies in its imagery. Stunning colours and a cascade of metaphors, on many different levels, constructs a coherent picture of the world of the cyclo. With a negligible amount of dialogue, the majority of scenes are dependent upon the characters and their actions. At first this works well, even with the mostly untrained cast. However, more is needed than simple eye-candy. After a while events occur for no obvious reason (or conversely, events don't occur when you expect them to) and with little connection to other scenes. It's possible to tie some of the story together but, without anything tangible or concrete, the whole structure starts to wallow. Little feeling for the characters is allowed to grow, giving us no reason to care what happens to them and no depth to their characters. This is, unfortunately, a movie where it's a pleasure when it finishes (even then the finale is a damp squib). A triumph of art over content, a beautiful trinket to hang in a gallery.

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