Just a week ago, I watched and sang along with Vietnamese-American filmmaker Stephane Gauger as he belted out Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” in a trendy bar in Saigon. Only seven days later, Stephane passed away at the age of 47, much to the shock and sadness of an international community.
I’ve got much to say about this amazing man and the legacy he left behind.
Exceeding Expectations (Even Within His Own Tribe)
Along with Johnny and Charlie Nguyen, Kieu Chinh, Dustin Nguyen, Ham Tran, Veronica Ngo Thanh Van, Victor Vu, Jenni Trang Le, and many others, Stephane Gauger was a major contribute to the “Viet Film Wave” that inspired me to travel down to California and eventually Vietnam.
I can’t exactly recall when I first met Stephane, but I certainly remember the first time I saw him as an actor in The Rebel, portraying a multilingual French underboss. The armchair scholar in me thought he just there to represent the evils of colonialism vis-a-vis the main protagonists of Johnny and Veronica, who personified the hard-line resistance-fueled nationalism that perpetually defines the Vietnamese collective subjectivity.
“A white dude as a baddie in a Viet film?” I thought, racistly. “Finally.”
