-Written by Kyle Bain.
2024 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW!
In the 1980’s New Wave music took Vietnamese culture by storm, altering the lives of the Vietnamese youth for generations to come. As many teenagers and young adults began obsessing over the subgenre of music, they found themselves in the throes of a pandemic, one that saw their families struggling to support their decisions, struggling to understand why they chose the path that they did. New Wave analyzes the trend that altered the future for Vietnamese families everywhere.
The best part of New Wave is the music, and it should be. In a documentary about music, the music in question should be the most prominently featured aspect of the film, and it should rock the house. There are no lulls in regard to the music here, and every song that presents itself to viewers does so in breathtaking fashion. I found my head bobbing back and forth, my foot tapping, ultimately struggling to contain the energy that poured from the screen throughout the duration of New Wave. Furthermore, the sparkling sounds are supplemented by beautiful women, often wearing things that were certainly a source of disdain among their families during this adoption of new music. The sounds and the visuals propel New Wave forward aggressively in the best way possible.
Other than that, I struggled to appreciate much about the film–and I believe that this stems from the strength of the aforementioned qualities of the doc.
Writer-Director Elizabeth Ai does such a wonderful job of ensuring that the audio and the visuals that help to perpetuate the film and its story are brilliant and effective, that they almost seem to steal from the more subtle, more dramatic moments of her documentary. New Wave touches very heavily on family, constantly visiting and revisiting the fact that this trend (but only to some–to some it was much more than that) tore families apart, and caused parents to question more than just their children’s musical choice–but nearly everything else about them as well. I think there’s something here that has the potential to appeal to far more than just the families that have experienced this exact situation. New Wave certainly extends itself far beyond the Vietnamese population; and it has the potential to teach us all a valuable lesson about accepting the differences in the ones we love. However, again, the music present in New Wave is so powerful that it drowns out the powerful sentiment present in the rest of the film.
Ai needed to create a balance between the narrative and the powerful sounds and images that transcend her film, but that delicate balance is never achieved–causing the narrative to falter, fall flat, or simply become overshadowed by the other half of the film. While New Wave has so much potential, and I loved portions of it, there are many instances where the film was challenging to watch. Balance was the key here–balance that managed to escape Ai.
Written & Directed by Elizabeth Ai.
Starring Ian “DJ BPM” Nguyen, Lynda Trang Đái, Elizabeth Ai, Myra Wu, Lan Tran, Asa Ai Hendrickson, etc.
6.5/10 = WATCH IT FOR FREE
