“They can do what they want. The city owns the zoo. They could sell all the animals here. They could turn it into a golf course. We’re just little people — you and me.”

Hải, a zookeeper played by Lê Thế Lữ, offers this bleak assessment to 10-year-old orphan Thúy (Phạm Thị Hân) as they gaze at the elephant he has raised in the Saigon Zoo since its birth. Thúy has just run away from abusive conditions in her uncle’s rural factory to Saigon with little plan or understanding of the world, and found a kind mentor in Hải. The pair proceeds into the city, cruising through streets devoid of cars and motorbike helmets to pick up bushels of bananas for the animals before loitering across from a cell phone shop offering the “newest models” that even take photos and record videos. 

Photo via International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Filmed in 2006, The Owl and the Sparrow (Cú và chim se sẻ) is a valuable time capsule of early 2000s Saigon, when impoverished children roamed the streets selling flowers beneath neon lights, bowls of VND5,000 hủ tiếu were announced by the banging of metal sticks, bulky tube televisions blared nature documentaries on VTV in musty hotel rooms and piles of paper records, receipts and invoices cluttered office shelves. But more than that, it's a timeless story of the “little people” in a big city searching for compassion and acceptance. 

Photo via International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Set over the course of five days, the feature film follows Thúy as she befriends Hải and a lonesome airline stewardess, Lan (played by Cát Ly). After the girl introduces them to each other, the pair share an emotional moment as they stare out over the balcony:

Owl and the Sparrow is a fairy tale in the sense that it begins with characters in states of unacknowledged desperation. From the heartbreaking moments of Thúy only being able to witness happy parents in the speech her own voice grants to her toy dolls to Lan crying after yet another romantic rendezvous with a married pilot, the movie offers the gritty miseries and routine pains that constitute life. 

Photo via International Film Festival Rotterdam.

These eternal human sorrows extend to the impacts of the city’s commercial priorities. Early in the film, an executive from the zoo visits Huy to explain: “Times are changing, the city is developing quickly. The Zoo isn’t making any money. Operating costs are too high.” When Huy responds, “The zoo isn’t supposed to make money,” I hear echoes of every poet, musician, and painter I admire. This manifestation of the unbalanced fight between art and capitalism is part of what first resonated with me when I came across the film on YouTube soon after moving to Saigon. And in addition to my unabashed appreciation of the Saigon Zoo, I admired that the Saigon it presented, one of threatening enormity and furious rapidity, held the power to provide companionship and acceptance: a found family in addition to a home, something I didn’t realize I was searching for. 

Video via Hsanchia YouTube.

Capturing the natural feel of Saigon

“This is the one movie all Vietnamese need to see,” Kenneth Nguyen announced on his podcast The Vietnamese when interviewing Cát Ly several years ago. Upon hearing this, I came to a dead stop, ironically just a few blocks from where the movie’s final scene occurs. I hadn’t discussed the movie with anyone before, and was thrilled to discover others held the same love for it as I do. Kenneth and Cát Ly were both extremely generous and excited to chat with me about the making of the movie, what it meant for them, and particularly the special talent and humanity of writer/director Stephane Gauger.

“I remember him telling me, ‘I'm going to write this in four weeks,’” Kenneth, a long-time friend of Gauger and a member of America’s Vietnamese film community, shared about the origin of The Owl and the Sparrow. At that time, Gauger was living in Saigon, spending days at the Insomnia cafe between work as a gaffer for movies made with other Vietnamese Americans. Born in Saigon in 1970 to a Vietnamese mother and German-American father, he was essentially brought up by his older sisters in their Orange County home, according to Kenneth, which explains why an extremely tall, very white looking man spoke fluent Vietnamese and could integrate into the communities held deep within Saigon’s hẻms. This allowed him a deep understanding and respect for the city’s rhythms, characters, and opportunities which he captured with his guerilla-style film-making. Fueled by moxie and maxed-out credit cards, he dove in headfirst with full faith in his creative vision for the film.

Gauger on set. Photo via the Orange County Register.

While carefully scripted with little space for improvisation, The Owl and the Sparrow borrows elements from cinema vérité, or “truthful cinema.” In its attempts to capture scenes and events as they feel when experienced first-hand, that style of documentary relies on handheld cameras that shake and move as they focus on characters and unfolding action. The film’s imperfect angles and unstable framing resulting from this filming method create an intimacy and authenticity. Moreover, Gauger relied on regular citizens and bystanders to serve as extras in scenes filmed on public streets. These elements, along with his astute understanding of the city and its inhabitants’ lifestyles, allow the film to feel like a non-fiction chronicle of true life.

“My tastes are urban and contemporary,” he said in an interview with the Orange County Register. “I shot digitally, using the latest tools to create a new cinéma vérité for Vietnamese cinema. The themes I wanted to address were dislocation in the big city, and certain moods of loneliness. We have a modern single man, a modern single woman, and a fish-out-of-water character.

“He just put us in this natural spot of what Saigon nightlife is like […] He wanted people to feel like they were there, that’s his style,” Cát Ly recalled of her portion of the shoot. “It was just him and his handheld and there were definitely no permits. He was like ‘Cát, just do what you gotta do and I'll do what I have to do. It was crazy … I don't even think people even knew he was recording, honestly, because when he was recording, there would be just like two or three crew people around him, just walking the streets,” she continued with a laugh. Gauger had a degree in theater arts and French literature and maintained dreams of being a writer and director while working as a gaffer. He was in that role on the set of Journey from the Fall when he first met Cát. “He was just one of the sweetest guys,” she recalled, “and very noticeable because he's so tall… And just super sweet. We hit it off.” She made an impression on him as well, as unbeknownst to her, he wrote the script for Owl and the Sparrow, with her intended as the lead.

While Cát had acted before, at that time she was focused on her singing career in the US, where she had moved to with her parents as a young child. The filming of The Owl in the Sparrow was her first time back in Vietnam, and her entire stint was limited to 10 of the shoot's full 15 days so she could return to America to maintain her scheduled performances. They didn’t even have time for rehearsals or table reads. Despite these challenges, she was drawn to the project not for the minimal money it paid but because it sounded fun and she wanted to support Gauger, especially because of the compliment he paid her in writing the role with her in mind. The script also won her over because the story was more than a romantic love story: “To me it was a story of family love […] in the end, it's all about family. I think everybody needs that type of love. I think family love is the best. You can always rely on your family. They're always there for you.”

Lan and Thúy share noodles. Photo via IMDB.

Meanwhile, the young girl who played Thúy had no film acting experience and was discovered at an open call in Saigon. While in Vietnam, Gauger had cast the rest of the actors and assembled a local team to support the filming, even though the location that required permits was the zoo. The whirlwind shoot ended quickly with Cát Ly resuming her regular shows and Gauger tasked with editing and ultimately searching for distribution and screenings. 

The necessity of being ahead of its time

The Owl and the Sparrow’s success depends on the metrics you apply. After its January 2007 premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, it played at more than 30 film festivals around the world. It picked up numerous awards, such as the Best Narrative Feature (Audience Award) at the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Best Narrative Feature at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival, as well as three Vietnamese Golden Kite awards in 2009, including Best Film voted by journalists and Best Foreign Collaboration Feature. 

Gauger (in the ball cap) on set in Saigon. Photo via Thể thao & Văn hóa.

A true artist, he was most concerned with sharing his craft and vision independent of accolades and sales. However, Kenneth and Cát both speculated that he was disappointed that the film did not resonate more with the Vietnamese American community. “I don't think the Vietnamese American or Vietnamese diaspora around the world really understood the film,” Kenneth said. “They didn't get what they wanted: something slick and steady and polished. And if it wasn't that, they weren't going to be interested. [But] I think people wanted to give it a chance and the high-brow people understood it.”

The film’s subject made it harder to resonate with diaspora audiences, Cát said, noting its differences with the previous film they had worked on together. “Journey from the Fall had more impact on people because more people went through that: boat people escaping from Vietnam. The audience members can relate to that, I believe, more than The Owl and the Sparrow.” Moreover, at the time of its release in 2007, members of the diaspora were not interested in returning to Vietnam like the younger generations are now, and thus, the topic of exploring a developing Saigon didn’t have the same appeal as stories that spoke to their own lived experiences. Cát added that the movie would likely resonate more today, thanks to the audience’s familiarity with different styles of movie-making and a desire for a greater variety of style types.

While The Owl and the Sparrow may not have connected with Vietnamese American audiences as much as the director wished, it provided consequential inspiration and tangible infrastructures for filmmakers in the community. Kenneth explained that despite 12 awards, it couldn’t find distribution, a shocking reality that reflects the challenges for Vietnamese films at the time. This led Gauger and a group of peers to establish a distribution company and fund cinema screenings. This determined belief in his work and the importance of Vietnamese cinema impacted future writers, directors, producers and filmmakers who went on to high-profile successes. “We looked up to him because he gave us the power,” Kenneth said. “He gave us the power to say ‘Let's just go do it.’ There's that ethos: he never had money, but he got things made.”

The big, lovable, bold, huggable teddy bear at the center of it all

After The Owl and the Sparrow, Gauger worked on other films, including writing and directing the hip hop story Saigon, Yo (2011) and co-writing with Timothy Bui the screenplay for Powder Blue which starred Forest Whitaker and Jessica Biel. Tragically, he passed away unexpectedly in 2018 at only 48 years old. In addition to the decades of exciting contributions to cinema that no doubt lay ahead for him, Kenneth reflected on what his loss meant on a personal level. He was  “the glue” that held a community together. “They loved being around him. He smoked and he drank, but he was just this big, lovable, bold, huggable teddy bear.” 

Photo via Tuổi Trẻ.

“He was one of the most attentive ones, you know?” Cát said. “Every morning on set, he'd come and ask, ‘Cat, you ready for today? I know you got this […]  you need anything, let me know.’ He was just that kind of guy — genuinely sweet. I don't think I've ever seen him upset or mean; always a smile and always happy-go-lucky. That's the type of guy he was.” 

Gauger’s full-throated love of life and people allowed him to succeed as a filmmaker as well. “You give me five minutes to hang out with the director or writer and I can tell you if they're going to make a good movie that I like or not, because you can tell who's really living authentically, who's really putting their ass on the line and living a life that's genuine,” Kenneth said. “If they’re not in it for the adventure of living, or they're not living on the edge of emotion or traveling or whatever it is that really puts them on the map, living past the boundaries of their regular peers who go on to medical school or whatever; If they're not pushing the envelope, you can tell. Stephane was one of those guys who truly pushed the envelope.”

This empathetic embrace of the world informs the emotional core of The Owl and the Sparrow, particularly its focus on the “little people” and the humanization of orphans and the poor. Kenneth explained: “I think it's because of how he was raised with no money and he always struggled financially, so he had this bond with people who are less fortunate. He had this deep love for for society, for people who are abandoned, for orphans who didn't have family because he was half Vietnamese, half white… so he was able to kind of like traverse these two worlds and understand the world of the abandoned and the unwanted, and then also get to experience the world of what deep family values are like.”

Owl and the Sparrow intersperced documentary footage of orphanages. Photo via IMDB.

Similarly, the movie offers a warm-hearted view of romance. While it no longer feels true, for a long time, an airline stewardess in Vietnam was a glamorous profession occupied by women from prestigious families with connections to the military and the entertainment elite. This position contrasts starkly with a zoo-keeper, a low-paid job that involves shoveling animal shit. And yet, despite coming from different social classes, the characters in The Owl and the Sparrow connect. Kenneth theorized this reflected Gauger’s own romantic experiences. “I think in his mind, it's just like: these women, airline stewardess types, get themselves tangled up in hot messes with married men. ‘Why not date a guy like me? You know, why not date a good man? Why not date a poor man who can make you happy? Who's deep, you know.’ So I think it was very personal.” 

I relayed this theory to Cát who lent support, adding that Gauger used to talk to her about relationships and his difficulties with women. Such reality surprised her at the time, and she would remark, “Hold on, really? You’re like, the sweetest dude.” To which she remembers him responding, “Maybe that's why, Cát. Maybe I'm too sweet.” So perhaps it's no surprise that the zoo-keeper who speaks to animals with a heart of gold charms the airline stewardess who is finally fed up with being the mistress of a rich pilot.

While I will never have the chance to ask Gauger himself about this idea, he said in an interview before his passing: “These characters embody a little bit of me. There’s a little bit of me in every character that I write.”

Friends and fans left notes for Gauger after his passing. Photo via Zing.

The ongoing life of The Owl and the Sparrow

When I first set out to explore this film and its history, I wanted to dig deeper and offer a more expansive chronicle of its making. I wanted to unearth the rare photos of Gauger when he shocked Cát by dressing up in something other than a tanktop for a movie premiere. I wanted to track down Phạm Gia Hân to hear what she remembers from filming with this strange, loveable giant who spoke fluent Vietnamese and hear how Pete Nguyen developed such a soothing, emotion-wrenching score. I wanted to provide space for all the insights and funny anecdotes Kenneth and Cát so generously shared, such as how, if you look closely, you might recognize Lan is a bit shaky on the motorbike because Cát had actually never driven one before, let alone in Saigon’s manic traffic. 

Cát Ly rides a motorbike for the first time. Photo via IMDB.

Unfortunately, time and space require that some elements will continue unreported, for now at least. And in the meantime, you can watch the film for yourself. Gauger owned the movie rights, and the version with English subtitles available on YouTube is legal and does not deprive anyone of an income. If you’re really lucky, you can catch one of the occasional full cinema screenings, such as at 2023’s Saigon Film Festival.

Perhaps Kenneth summed it up best when I asked him to expand on his statement that every Vietnamese should see The Owl and the Sparrow. Reflecting on Gauger’s enthusiastic confidence and insatiable effort that made it possible, he said, “Everybody should watch it to see what kind of realities in life are possible when you put your mind to it.”