A Vietnamese family struggles to survive in Cheb’s notorious Dragoun Market in the early 2000s in Summer School, 2001 (Letní škola, 2001), which premiered at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and is now playing in Prague cinemas. This affectionate portrait of the journey of immigrants in the Czech Republic can sometimes feel narratively overwrought, but a raw authenticity and genuine nostalgia for a very particular time and place bleed through the screen.
The Vietnamese community in Czechia represents the third-largest in the country (after Slovaks and Ukrainians) and third-largest Vietnamese diaspora in Europe (after France and Germany); the roots of immigration began during the communist years (briefly referenced by the father character here) but have greatly increased over the past three decades. Previous films have touched on the Vietnamese experience in the country (perhaps most memorably in 2011 Czech Lion winner Flower Buds), but Summer School, 2001—directed by Dužan Duong, who was born in Hanoi and emigrated at a young age—bills itself as Czechia’s first Viet-film: a claim it makes good on.
Summer School, 2001 relays the events of a few weeks during the summer of 2001 from the perspectives of three members of a Vietnamese family that operates a stall at the Cheb marketplace. A real-life location that has since become a modern shopping center, vendors at the Dragoun Market sold knockoff goods to German tourists (characters here can be glimpsed ironing brand logos onto t-shirts) and were frequent targets of Czech Trade Inspection Authority (CTIA) raids.
Zung (Anh Doan Hoang), the family’s patriarch, attempts to chase away CTIA officials with a machete in the film’s opening scene. His storyline accounts for the first and weakest third of Summer School, 2001‘s narrative: recruited by marketplace owner Phong (Dung Nguyen) to buy out all the vendors before the locale is turned into a luxury hotel by German investors, Zung falls into depression and alcoholism, and doesn’t get enough screen time to become fully rehabilitated.
His 12-year-old son Tai (Tien Tai To), meanwhile, brings a youthful exuberance to Summer School, 2001‘s middle storyline. Tai clashes with summer school teacher Viktor (Thang Xuan Ngo) and his other family members, and shares Mark Twain-esque adventures—including a memorable excursion to a nudist beach—with his young friends. There’s a warm touch and lack of manufactured drama to Tai’s scenes that make them the highlight of the film; this, clearly, is the character director Duong most identifies with.
But a final storyline told from the point of view of 17-year-old Kien (The Duong Bui) is also affecting. He returns to Cheb after spending a decade with his grandmother in Vietnam, for reasons he is still processing, which adds an additional layer to the usual teen angst issues. He stirs some controversy amongst the conservative local community with his spiky red hair and ill manners, while still confronting the true nature of his character.
There’s an episodic nature to the presentation of Summer School, 2001, and while the narrative retells some events from different perspectives, this isn’t exactly Rashomon. Unfortunately, the film writes itself into a corner during an unnecessarily complex third act, and some viewers may bristle at the resolution (or lack thereof) of one of the film’s key relationships. But a final sequence in Vietnam firmly returns focus to the central family—and, nicely, to the the family’s matriarch (Le Quỳnh Lan), who doesn’t get her own dedicated storyline.
Despite some reservations at a script level, there’s a real warmth to the overall presentation, and this is genuinely accurate-feeling presentation of the experience of the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic. Some culture-clash elements may be lost of foreign viewers, including the hybrid use of both Czech and Vietnamese languages; Tai’s unreserved use of Czech slang drew frequent laughs from audiences in Karlovy Vary.
Summer School, 2001 is presented through a hazy, nostalgic lens by cinematographer Adam Mach that almost recalls Christopher Doyle’s early work for Wong Kar-wai (Chungking Express), and while the Cheb marketplace no longer exists, the grotty locations chosen to re-create it do an excellent job. An evocative original soundtrack by Jonatan Pjoni Pastirčak (Broken Voices) is nicely paired with some well-chosen Czech tunes from the past few decades.
Be sure to stick around into the credits, which features an epilogue that hints at the family’s future and showcases growing Czech appreciation for Vietnamese cuisine. Summer School, 2001 is a heartfelt and quietly groundbreaking portrait of a community rarely seen onscreen, and director Duong brings the Vietnamese-Czech experience into the spotlight with honesty and tenderness, avoiding stereotypes while capturing both the hardship and humor of immigrant life.
