“Blessed Land”, which premiered at the Berlinale, is a mysterious object directed by Pham Ngoc Lan that shows Vietnam from a privileged point of view. Maybe it's because of the concreteness of black and white images that, by transforming the warm colours of Southeastern Asia, create a tension with the film's solemn, and sometimes dreamlike, atmosphere. A woman and her son return to an old fishermen village to pay respects to her husband's remains. But finding his tombstone is harder than she thought. The dunes where the old cemetery was built serve now as golf courses, where the “new money” likes to show off. Using a binocular appliance, which favours close-ups and wide shots within the shot, Lan casts a critical look at contemporary society's relationship with the sacred, death (and life and the living's supremacy) and individual memory, as well as their commodification. Are the places of death for sale? (AJM)