Supermarket Affairs

Supermarket Affairs is a tragicomedy narrative short film that centers around a Vietnamese immigrant woman of the older generation, and her relationship with her daughter. Shopping for the big death anniversary banquet that she insists on throwing for her late husband, 60-year-old new immigrant Mrs. Hoa starts fantasizing about this handsome younger man who works as a promotion salesperson at the local Asian supermarket, while keeping it secret from her only daughter and family, Ha. After they have a big fight on the anniversary day, Mrs. Hoa goes back to the supermarket on her own to find solace in the connection with the man, not knowing that this time she is followed by Ha. In the finale sequence, accumulated tensions explode to a dramatic yet hilarious confrontation between the three of them, creating room for reconciliation and making Mrs. Hoa realize what she truly wants for her new life in America.

The film is a comedic, bittersweet exploration of the themes of alienation and overcoming generational traumas. Specifically, the protagonist, Mrs. Hoa, feels alienated in both a new living environment that is America, and in her interpersonal relationship with her estranged daughter. As a result, she constantly makes trips to the local Asian supermarket to seek familiar groceries as remedies for alienation and homesickness. Ironically, the large Asian supermarket with its cold, florescent-lit colors and existing patterns formed by goods lining up on shelves, is the epitome of alienation: where one seeks familiarity and comfort but ends up getting lost and marginalized, when all these diverse identities of a large continent are imported, fused together, and put on display. Along this line of thinking, the American Asian supermarket, at its best, is a manifestation of globalization, immigration, and creolization. The feeling of alienation triggers in Mrs. Hoa past traumas related to her husband’s death and the consequential issues she has with her daughter, things that she has been trying to leave behind but now must face. In the end, both Mrs. Hoa and her daughter learn how to grieve together as a family instead of grieving alone. The film therefore is Mrs. Hoa’s journey of overcoming these traumas and issues to find her own happiness in a new land at an old age, something that many older Asian immigrants experience.

Inspirations for this film came to me when I first moved to Austin for my master’s degree in film, and this is the first time I lived in a foreign country for that long. The way Mrs. Hoa feels alienated is very much how I felt in the first few months here. In one of the trips to the groceries, I had this initial vision of an older Asian woman wandering around the isles and displays of a large cold supermarket, and I imagined it was my mother. It was then combined with real life stories of my US immigrant friends, and my own personal experience navigating a difficult relationship with my mother after the loss of my father. Therefore, this story is deeply personal to me on so many levels.

Telling this story in a drama-comedic tone rather than straightforward drama, the film attempts to tread the fine line between tragedy and comedy, being heart-wrenchingly emotional and brutally funny at the same time - to the point of unapologetic when talking about heavy topics such as death and mourning. Because in my opinion, to truly portray tragedy, one must have the guts to look at tragedy in the face and, maybe even laugh at it.

To express its complex themes visually, the film employs a cinematography style that is mostly static and stagnant, using many wide shots and long takes depicting the characters being alone in a large environment with lots of negative space. As the story progresses and dynamics between characters change, the film’s colors become warmer and more vibrant, the pace starts to pick up and the camera also becomes more dynamic with handheld movements, especially in the final sequence.