Five Inspirations is a series in which we ask directors to share five things that shaped and informed their film. Lê Bảo’s Taste is exclusively showing on MUBI starting February 16, 2022.
INSPIRATION #1
When I sat on the bus to go to high school when I was younger, I would close my eyes and feel the rhythm of its movements, it turned into a feeling of floating. It was at that time that I met African men for the first time, on the last bench of the bus. My eyes opened. The emotions from their faces awoke me and gave me a very strong vibration. I kept these inside of me and gradually they rose to become the strong desire to tell a story about African men in Saigon.
INSPIRATION #2
The sound of the electricity in the house I used to live in erased a lot of sounds from the surrounding spaces and interior souls and thoughts. Some nights, there would be a power cut and that was the time for natural sounds of the environment to fill my mind. This made me create another space within the city. The different spaces of my imagination comforted me and pushed me to walk more inside of it instead of just looking at the outside world as is.
INSPIRATION #3
The way chlorophyll absorbs sunlight and becomes the most important green system for trees, vegetables, and even humans.
INSPIRATION #4
The conflicted connection between the silent persons in my family. Violence and the repression of their emotions turns to a longing for the tenderness of each other.
INSPIRATION #5
The old slippers of my father.