Nam (Minh Vu) and Viet (Phan Thanh Tam) meet in the dark depths of a coal mine, where their love remains hidden, protected by the darkness. Up in the real world, they pretend to be brothers. The coal that surrounds the men becomes a powerful symbol:for the land itself, which is steeped in the history of its people and the deep wounds of war, and for the secret of their unaccepted love. At the same time, the two help Nam's mother to find her husband, who went missing in the Vietnam War. When Viet finds out that Nam wants to emigrate, their love begins to fall apart. Director Trương Minh Quý succeeds in elegantly interweaving the relationship between Nam and Viet with Vietnam's geopolitical and historical challenges. The mine environment, captured on impressive 16mm film, conveys a dreamlike quality - the shimmering coal is reminiscent of a starry night sky. Viet and Nam is an allegorically shimmering cinematic poem about the impossibility of free self-determination. Abstract concepts such as loss, identity and history are transformed into complex emotional cinematic images by Trương Minh Quý's direction, resulting in a panorama of collective and individual history. The film was considered too radical for the Vietnamese film authorities, who banned it before its premiere in Cannes due to its “gloomy and negative” view of the country.