Uncle Thach struggled with mental illness. Nearly twenty years after his death, his brother—filmmaker Carol Nguyen’s father—is still haunted by guilt: would Thach still be alive if he had stayed with him just 15 minutes longer?
In the intimate Still Night, Burning House, they travel to Vietnam with other family members to reflect on the past and tentatively reconnect. Thach’s death left its mark on those he left behind, but over the years they have barely spoken about it. Carol’s nieces learn more about their father—a refugee who concealed his episodes of psychosis for decades—while Thach’s widow and Carol’s father separately look back on what they went through.
Nguyen captures this process of coming to terms with the past with quiet restraint. Each family member is given space to revisit memories and share unresolved emotions. Old wounds may not disappear, but toward the end, we see them become a little less alone in their grief.
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