Diễm Hà Lệ on Children of the Mist

Courtesy of Diễm Hà Lệ

Diễm Hà Lệ's debut feature, Children of the Mist, is a documentary where Hà Lệ is doing nearly everything, from scheduling to shooting, during principal photography. The arrangement creates an intimate relationship between filmmaker and film participant. Hà Lệ uses the camera as a first-person POV character to understand Di's situation with the bride kidnapping within Hmong culture amid the mists in Vietnam. The mists create psychological, internal horror where the characters become afraid of the forces they encounter.

"I am a decent man. Before marriage, I would ask her parents. I won't kidnap her," said Viang as he held Di and walked away from Hà Lệ. This remark entails the complexities of bride kidnapping as it is an expected event in many girls' lives from ages 13 to 17. It asks the viewer who is planning the abduction and why it is a generational event. They walk on a curved path as it implies that there is no clear outlook on Di's life and solution to stopping brides from being kidnapped. Hà Lệ, who is not Hmong, humanizes each involved party as an outsider and Di's friend while acknowledging the harmful effects on the bride and her family.

After winning the award for Best Directing at its world premiere at IDFA 2021, Children of the Mist is making several stops across the United States festival circuit, such as True/False (March 3 - 6, 2022), SFFilm (April 21 - May 1, 2022), Seattle International Film Festival (April 14 - 26, 2022), and New Directors/New Films series at Film at Lincoln Center (April 20 - May 1, 2022). Hà Lệ recently spoke with me via zoom before its New Directors/New Films screenings about the conception of the documentary, her challenges in the making of the film, and the ebbs and flows of her relationship with protagonist Di. 

- NOTE: This conversation is edited & condensed for clarity, & contains spoiler alerts. -

EF: Thank you for bringing this bleak portrait of your movie [to ND/NF]. How did this idea come to you?

DHL: So the idea came to me when I finished university. I had a Hmong friend, and they started to tell me a lot about their culture. In 2017, we decided to open a little [filmmaking, painting and photography] workshop for Hmong children in the mountains of Vietnam.  We came to the mountains of Vietnam and we stayed in DI’s house because Di’s dad wanted to make us come to the house and stay with the parents. When I saw Di and her friend playing around in the village, it reminded me about my own childhood because I also come from a non ethnic group in Vietnam and my friend got married very young at 7. In the beginning of the film, I just want to make documentary films about the beautiful town of Cà Mau, Vietnam. I just wanted to follow Di and her friend, and life of Hmong girls. A year later, I realized about bride kidnapping in their culture and it is scary.

EF: Yes. It is systemic, especially with the parents’ involvement. In the film, Di’s mom negotiates with the man about the financial planning of the wedding and bride kidnapping. Can you talk about how the parents are involved in this?

DHL: This is my first documentary film. I do not understand Hmong language. I do not have a very clear idea about the film. I just want to follow my characters and was filming by feeling after four years. We have 100 hours of footage. It is complicated to share it from my perspective.

EF: It is complicated because it’s something the kids play it [bride kidnapping] out in the beginning and then we see the real attempt at the end. Can you explain how this is permeated in the community that is portrayed in the film?

DHL: It is really hard to know how it is going through [this community]. I just have a very bad feeling about Di’s future when I started filming in 2015 and it is scaring me. One year after, when I realized about bride kidnapping in Hmong Culture, I know a lot of stories about Di’s classmate and the girls in the school as they were kidnapped, raped, and sold to the Chinese border. We have a lot of happy memories after one year and it changed everything.I want to follow Di. It’s very hard for me in Di’s town. One year in the beginning, Di shared with me a love story about her life and her thinking of where she is growing up.  She just hung out with her friend and she lied about it. She wanted to hang out with [Viang] and didn’t want her parents to know about that. I was really scared in her town because I know she can put herself in a dangerous situation at any moment. In the beginning, we were friends. After a year into the film, we were fighting with each other. Sometimes, I want to use my camera for filming and hide my emotions. When Di and her parents started to ask me of my opinions about their life, I somehow to stick out my thinking and would be angry with Di. It was very bad in our last shoot when she was bride kidnapped. It was a complete, chaotic situation for me. In that moment, we realize that we know the truth in anyone and believe in myself alone. Because the parents refer to me as a younger daughter and Di’s sister, they say in Hmong culture, only the older sister and younger brother are allowed to physically grow in their careers when the boy’s family try to kidnap Di. I believed that when the grandmother tried to stop me. I just realized that I don’t have this power. As an outsider, it’s really a hurtful feeling. I’m really sad about that. After that, I realize that only the parent have the power to stop the boy’s family from kidnapping her again. After I realized Di wasn’t safe, I closed my camera and left the house for 6 months because I didn’t want to come back. After 6 months, I realized I did not want to end my film on the bride kidnapping scene. I came back and started to follow Di one year after.

EF: In the beginning of the film, you use a title card that reads “three years before” after the opening scene where you state that you worry about losing Di. Why did you use this structure [in terms of the film’s editing]?

DHL: We have to decide the chapters of the film. It was really hard for us. After three months, we decided to have the chapters and scripts of myself in the beginning of the film. After that, I just want to show what happened first and we just came back to look at the past. I think this is a very violent feeling with DI as the main character and me. I just want to make it less painful for me and Di. By the way, we let the audiences know what happened first, which may be easier for us to look back at the story. That’s why we started to do that.

EF: Thank you for that and how did you maintain in touch with Di after the kidnapping?

DHL: It was hard. After Di came back to the house, I knew she was safe. I closed my camera and came to her. I said to her “now everything is fine.” She turns around, looks at me and says “I hate you” since the event and it hurts me very much because she talks about how I didn’t do anything to help her. I was angry about that because I really did something to help her. She was very angry with me. I was very angry with Di and her parents because the parents didn’t do anything. They say I can help Di pull back to her older sister La. Sometimes, I don’t understand Hmong language. When they speak with me in Vietnamese, the parents explain that. They don’t agree with Di getting married and don’t agree with the boy. They don’t want Di to get married very young. I started to believe in her parents. In this moment I do not understand why they are doing it. I still feel very bad [about this] and it hurts me very much in this situation. When I came back to the house, she was angry with her parents because she thinks her parents didn’t understand her and stand by her cultural [values]. Finally, when we were growing up, we are alone and didn’t have anyone to stand by us. I’m tired of that feeling.

EF: It is a gut feeling where being in the mountains gives you freedom without any supervision, as well as the weather providing this expression. It is such a cloudy film. There’s so much fog and it adds to the meaning of the film’s title. What are the roles of the fog and clouds in the film?

DHL: While we were filming the beginning of the film when I went to the village, I love the mist that is surrounding the village, it was really beautiful. When I realized about Hmong culture, about bride kidnapping and La’s story about the girls in Hmong culture, I hated the mist so much. I also have a story from when I was a child. I had to go to school. On the way to school, there was a very little path on the mountain. I realized the mist is covering up. It felt like war. I can’t go through the mist to go to school because I do not know what will happen to me once I go through the mist. I was very scared and quit school. Five days later, my parents said to me that you can’t go to school. I was scared because I had to go to school by myself through the mountain in the cold winter. I realized when I was seeing Di, it was an eerie mist being developed. On the outside, the mist is very beautiful. When we were growing up in the mountains in Vietnam, we had a different feeling about the mist. I hate the mist. I just felt like finally, I and Di can’t deny about it. We are also the children in the mist. That is why we titled this film.

EF: That’s definitely a great title and background information. I am always nervous to go through the fog as it creates uncertainty. What were some roadblocks you encountered during the making of this film?

DHL: I received a lot of help from the parents [with communication] in the beginning of the film. The Hmong people live very separated from the rest of the Vietnamese people. When I came back to the house, the dad can speak Vietnamese very well. But the mother only understands Vietnamese a little bit. They brought me everywhere in the village. They also took me by motorbike [too]. It was a big help from the parents to allow me to understand their culture. With Di, she really liked to talk with me about her feelings and her life in the village. Somehow, we connect through the same feelings. I enjoy the life as Hmong people and I follow them everywhere, even taking a bath for them. I just film by feeling. Because I don’t understand Hmong language, I sent all the footage to my producers [after filming] and they gave me some advice for the next film[shoots]. Di and her parents will translate a little bit of footage for me. After four years [and once we received grants], we had the chance to translate all 100 hours of footage. We got a translator, who also comes from another village, and is a distant relative with Di. He went to the capital [of Vietnam], Hanoi to translate the footage. It took me three months [for it to happen].

EF: As I saw in the credits, you were the only person listed that was filming with a camera. Were there any other people [producers, sound recordists, etc.] with you while filming with Di and the other featured people or was it just you filming the entire time?

DHL: It was only me filming with Di, all the time. I have a camera and put the microphone [on top of the camera]. My producer TRẦN [Phương] went to maybe two times to help me record sound. She just came very late after the bride kidnapping scene. But it was just me with my camera the entire time to follow Di and her parents everywhere.

EF: It gives a personal feeling for the participants so that they don’t feel intrusion from the other many crew members.

DHL: I enjoy the life of filming when I stay with DI and her parents. I like to hold the camera and it is a little bit hard for me to work with sound. If I have someone help me with the sound, I will have a lot more freedom while filming. [For example] When I was filming Di and her friends, I need to record the sound and stand very close with Di and everybody when they’re speaking. Sometimes, I don’t have much more choices when I’m filming. I have to be very close for sound.

EF: Despite all of these challenges, every shot and sound design is beautiful.

DHL: When you watch the final version of the film, [the sound design] comes from Thailand’s White Light Studios. White Light [and the sound engineer] did very well with sound mixing.

EF: What do you want audiences to take away from Children of the Mist?

DHL: I just want audiences to have the free feeling when they watch the film. I want to let the audiences feel free about how they feel and about the ideas [such as bride kidnapping in Hmong culture] that are in the film.