Anatomy of a Springroll

Anatomy of a Springroll

Asian-American, documentary, family, Vietnam

gift from filmmaker, used for teaching and research.

FILMAKERS LIBRARY

1994

VHS

Documentary

The winner of a Special Jury Award in the Na­tional Education Film and Video Festival of 1993, Paul Kwan’s Anatomy of a Springroll is a collage of im­ages of food linking him with his Vietnamese homeland. Kwan blends reminiscences of his boyhood Saigon home with his perpetuation of it through its food in his northern Califor­nia home. There is much of the surreal and comical here as Kwan interposes elements such as an Asian puppet drama de­picting a cook preparing 100 dishes for a tyrant, and an ani­mated dream sequence where the narrator, as a child, shares a Lucullan feast with the Moon Goddess. This is juxtaposed with intense feelings for fam­ily, the personal ravages brought on by the Vietnam war, and Kwan’s own Proustian madeleine, the springroll. --D. E. Perushek

56 mins

Paul Kwan-Arnold

Iger-Paul Lundahl

https://brooklyn-cuny.yuja.com/V/Video?v=11266889&node=50138059&a=10542156

Anatomy of a Springroll Excerpt from Paul Lundahl on Vimeo.