Chương 2 · Chapter 2

Đời lính thợ của ba ở Pháp

My father, a conscript worker in France

Nguyên văn chương 2 hồi ký của ông Trần Văn Sơn. Bản tiếng Anh dịch sát bên dưới mỗi đoạn. The full chapter as he wrote it, with an English translation under each paragraph.

Translator’s note: the memoir calls Pierre Daum “a Frenchman of Vietnamese origin”; he is a French journalist, and his book appeared in 2009 as Immigrés de force: les travailleurs indochinois en France (1939–1952).

Chương 3 · Ba đi kháng chiến! →
Chapter 3: Father joins the resistance
← Chương 1 · Mục lục · all chapters

Dòng thời gian · Timeline

Bảy năm xứ người

Seven years abroad, and after, from chapter 2

Thực hiện · Making of

Cách bộ phim được làm

A film with no video file

This chapter's film is a small JavaScript program, like chapter 1 and its companion 60 năm. Every frame is drawn live on a canvas from about thirty-five paper cut-outs and fourteen painted backdrops. The pieces jitter at twelve frames a second, like stop-motion under a rostrum camera, and each scene arrives on a torn sheet of paper. The sound effects are synthesised in the browser: the temple bell, the sea, the factory drone, the overseer's whip, marching boots, crickets, the prison lock and the night river. The two recorded tracks are the narration and the score.

Illustrations are an artistic re-imagining, not historical photographs. Names, dates and events come only from his memoir. Trần Sa and chú Sơ are drawn from family photos; the stepmother, thím, and the boys Phong and Hóa are imagined from the text.