Gender, Nation and Spatial Mobility in On Top of the Wave, on Top of the Wind

Abstract

This chapter examines women’s mobility as presented in Vietnamese revolutionary cinema in its heyday following the Gulf of Tonkin incident (in 1964). Focusing on Ngọc Quỳnh’s On Top of the Wave, on Top of the Wind, it argues that this film offers a timely reflection upon the reality of fighting and the labour of the Vietnamese people in the American War. Through the film’s spatial narrative and visuality of cultural and physical geography, the filmmaker conflates nation and home, blurring the separation of domestic and public spaces and creating a national/ familial space for both sexes. Yet while this narrative invokes patriotism and mobilizes women’s participation in the national struggle, it also limits women’s agency and subjectivity after the war.