In Kim Thúy’s eyes, Chloé Djandji was the ideal actress to play Tinh, 10 years old, a girl from a wealthy family in Saigon forced to leave Vietnam with her parents (Chantal Thuy and Jean Bui) and her two little brothers in 1978. And yet, the 13-year-old newcomer is very different from the alter ego of the novelist who evolves in Ru, a feature film by Charles-Olivier Michaud, scripted by Jacques Davidts, based on the novel published by Libre Expression in 2009.
“I would have liked to have the same confidence as Chloé when I was young,” says Kim Thúy, staring at the young actress. At one point, on set, she said to me: “You know, I speak three languages, but Charles-Olivier never wants me to speak!” »
“I was so disappointed because I really like talking,” confirms Chloé Djandji. It was like a challenge not to speak during the 34 days of filming, except between takes. »
While the novel is told in fragments by Tinh as an adult, on screen Tinh’s memories also emerge in fragments, but the young girl barely utters a few words. In fact, all the emotions she expresses can be read in her eyes and on her face.
“The explanation I gave to Chloé is very simple,” says the novelist. When I arrived here, I didn’t speak French. Plus, I was very shy. Three years after the war, Vietnam fell into total silence. We no longer had the right to listen to music, to express ourselves, to be. We forget how three years of living like that is enough to raise a little girl. During the scriptwriting process, for example, I explained to Jacques and Charles-Olivier that Tinh could not struggle when his mother treats her lice. They really brought me back to who I was. »
As proof, when the author of Ru contacted her childhood friend Johanne (Milya Corbeil-Gauvreau), the daughter of the Quebec couple (Karine Vanasse and Patrice Robitaille) who welcomed her family, the latter did not recognize her at all. right now.
“Johanne had never heard my voice,” reveals Kim Thúy. When we went for coffee, she also told me that she didn’t recognize my gestures at all. When I was little, I was completely overwhelmed by events, I didn’t move like I do today. I always said that Granby was the place of my second birth; in the film, Tinh is like a baby coming out of its mother’s womb. So that’s why Chloé was silenced, but what’s magnificent is that she played with everything else. »
“The real Johanne is part of my family! She’s my father’s godmother’s niece! proudly exclaims Chloé Djandji. I arrived in Quebec three years ago, but half of my family is Quebecois. Every summer, I came back to Quebec; I then had to speak Vietnamese, French and English. In Vietnam, I went to a French school. My father spoke to me all the time in French and my mother spoke to me all the time in Vietnamese; when we speak together, it’s in Vietnamese Franglais. »
“With Chloé, we didn’t experience the same things at all, she didn’t arrive in Quebec in the same context,” continues Kim Thúy.
Even though Chloé Djandji was born in Vietnam, before listening to Ru’s audio version, she knew very little about the Vietnam War, which they call the American war there, about the traumas of war, about the unsanitary conditions of makeshift boats and refugee camps in Malaysia.
“In my family, we are very open, we talk about everything,” confides the interpreter of Tinh. In Vietnam, the separation of the country, the war, the boat people, it’s a story that the country wants to forget. There’s a war museum, but it only talks about the North Vietnam victory; the defeat of South Vietnam, we don’t talk about it. At the French school where I went to Vietnam, we did not teach the history of Vietnam, only French history. »
Kim Thúy, whose novel Ru was not released in Vietnam, then addresses the problem of censorship in his country of origin. She even reveals that if the film is successful, neither she nor Chloé Djandji will be able to return to Vietnam.
“A few days ago, I met a Vietnamese woman who settled in Quebec eight years ago; she told me that it was here that she discovered the history of Vietnam. She had never heard the expression boat people. The problem we have with Vietnam today is that we don’t have this openness, we don’t want to hear this story. »
Touched by the story of her grandparents, some having fled to South Vietnam during the partition of Vietnam in 1954, the others having been driven out of Syria because of the coup d’état of 1963, Chloé Djandji had keen to tell a part of the history of his country: “Everything I know about my grandparents, I want to keep it in mind in order to pass it on to my children because it is part of the history of our family and we need to talk about it. Ru talks about the Vietnam War, but also talks about family, so it will touch a lot of people. »
“April 30, 1975, was the end of the American war. In Vietnam, we celebrate the reunification of the country; Outside Vietnam, we mourn the fall of Saigon. It’s the same event, but that day, we don’t talk about the boat people, those who left. When my parents die, we will no longer have adult witnesses to the event,” says Kim Thúy.
