Interview: Malene Bang & Zven Balslev

Malene Bang, Zven Balslev og Ly Thi Vu: The Fake Island, 2009. Installations view.

What is your animation movie Dao Gia about?

We didn’t really know what would come out of the project when we started it in Hanoi. All we did know was we wanted to work with that specific media, 
because none of us had worked with film before, and we could meet on a common level. The movie is an abstraction of Hanoi’s hectic everyday life, as we perceived it.  

How did you make the movie?

We improvised the whole movie during our stay. There wasn’t any script or storyboard, just some loose ideas. We did a lot of snapshots and different sequences and edited it during the last week.

Malene Bang, Zven Balslev og Ly Thi Vu: The Fake Island, 2009. Installations view.

Tell about how the movie was inspired by the city of Hanoi.

Hanoi is another planet! Specially comparing it to Copenhagen, where everything is very safe and calm. Like most of the western tourists we were both immediately overwhelmed by the messy and hyperactive traffic of the city. But the movie is mostly a metaphor of our states of mind during the stay.

What does the title Fake Island mean in relation to the movie, where there is no obvious island?

This title has many layers, In Asia there is so much fake, in many ways. Things are just never the way they seem or promise to be. What is striking in Vietnam, is a very peculiar form of architecture where the front seems to be the only important bit, the rest is just concrete walls. Obviously there’s also all the imitation brands although that is not really present in our movie. In Dao Gia the scenery is fake and made of paper but like you said there is no island. The title promises something that is not there.

Malene Bang, Zven Balslev og Ly Thi Vu: The Fake Island, 2009. Installations view.

What did the ginseng root in the movie represent?

The ginseng roots are characters in a parallel world. While humans sucks on a ginseng root to gain energy and good health, there is, somewhere, a tribe of sick ginsengs missing strength and coping with headache and extreme laziness. 

How did you experience Vietnam?

Hanoi is a cartoonish melting pot of policemen in pajamas smoking tobacco-bongs, fat German tourists carried on bicycles, red-necked backpackers obsessed with big bottles of water, people chopping dog meat and whatnot in front of jewelry stores... You sit on a lousy plastic chair and enjoy some noodles and all that is Hanoi’s beauty and a strong contrast to Scandinavia’s clean, over-controlled society. But of course all this is mostly enjoyable if you are a tourist. After a while you get depressed and chocked by the lack of culture, the poverty, the state censorship and the feeling that the country is somehow stuck in time... 

Malene Bang, Zven Balslev og Ly Thi Vu: The Fake Island, 2009. Installations view.

The soundtrack play an important part in the project. Tell about it, and how you have made it.

There’s so many beautiful and different sounds and noises in Hanoi so it’s obvious to incorporate that element into the project. We recorded the sound in one take more or less live to the film with instruments bought in Hanoi and the precious help of Mimi (Ly Thi Vu´s nickname). We also recorded her and her friend talking in their native language but we have no idea what they are talking about…

The project was made in collaboration with Ly Thi Vu, a H’mong
friend you met in Sa Pa, and decided to include in the project. How was your
collaboration?

Very fun! Her direct approach to making art and music was very liberating.

Malene Bang, Zven Balslev og Ly Thi Vu: The Fake Island, 2009. Installations view.

How was the audience’s reaction to your project?

We talked with a few people at the opening and they understood totally the idea of the film, which is very satisfying as an artist. To communicate clearly although with a relatively complicated message.

How does this project relate to other projects you do? Is it different?

As mentioned earlier, none of us had worked with film as an art form before, so yes it is different from other projects we do. But you could say that we both are preoccupied with certain moods and imagery that is present in the film. 

Thanks.

Malene Bang, Zven Balslev og Ly Thi Vu: The Fake Island, 2009. Installations view.