When the Tenth Month Comes

Bao giờ cho đến tháng Mười

A widow’s quiet sorrow, a nation’s unspoken grief, where memory, mourning, and resilience meet beneath the autumn moon.

Synopsis

In the final days of the Vietnam War, a young schoolteacher named Duyên returns to her rural village with a heartbreaking secret, her husband has been killed in battle. Determined to shield her father-in-law and young son from the truth, she navigates her grief in silence. As Duyên enlists the help of a local poet to forge letters from her late husband, her quiet sorrow deepens, revealing the immense emotional toll of war on the home front. Đặng Nhật Minh’s When the Tenth Month Comes is a haunting meditation on mourning, memory, and the enduring strength of women, told through poetic black-and-white imagery and steeped in traditional Vietnamese sensibilities. Widely regarded as one of Vietnam’s greatest cinematic achievements, the film marked a turning point in the nation’s post-war storytelling, from collective victory to personal loss.
Available on YouTube with English closed captions