Imprint from cinema
“The Silver Ring” (koong hu) directed by Lam Son, produced by Ho Chi Minh City General Film Company in 1982. This is a film about the Central Highlands with epic content: Fighting to protect the village. To have the most realistic scenes of the people, landscape, and culture of the Central Highlands, the film crew chose Ktang village and a village in An Khe as the setting.
Sitting under the shade of a tree in front of the communal house, Mr. Poc (born in 1962), the village elder of Kăng, recalled the joyful days when the film crew returned to the village: In the film, the village reenacted the “Victory Celebration” buffalo eating ceremony right in front of the communal house. No one knew what “filming” was, so everything happened very naturally. The film crew stood on the communal house, cheering and dancing to the beat of the gongs, making the villagers even more excited.
The scene that year featured all the faces of young and old, big and small, dressed in traditional costumes, gathered in front of the communal house in a jubilant, bustling atmosphere. Mr. Poc was just 20 years old at that time, and was assigned to do logistics. After filming, he and the young people in the village “burned buffalo”, processed it into a traditional dish for the film crew to enjoy at the farewell party.
More than 40 years have passed, People's Artist Xuan La, former Deputy Director of the Dam San Music and Dance Theater - who played the role of H'Lan in the film, is still deeply impressed: "The men played the gongs very strongly, and the women were so beautiful that they were mesmerizing. In particular, dozens of young men performed on stilts, walking and dancing together, creating a spectacular dance. Rarely does a gong team have such a special accompaniment on stilts."
People's Artist Xuan La still clearly remembers the harsh sunlight of the dry season, when people wore thick, hot brocade clothes but were still absorbed in singing and beating gongs. It seemed like they forgot everything around them to live fully in the sounds of the festival.
“The gong song celebrating the victory at the end of the film is like a beautiful coda, expressing the indomitable spirit of the Central Highlands, echoing forever in people's hearts,” People's Artist Xuan La recalled.
That memory was also continued by Mr. Poc when mentioning another special detail that makes the gong music lively. He said: In the past, unmarried young men all slept in the communal house. In the rainy season, the red dirt village roads were flooded up to their shins, so most of them used stilts to move around. When People's Artist Y Brom (deceased) helped the film crew with the choreography, he creatively added the stilt dance to the gong team, walking on stilts and tapping each other. Not only creating a lively harmony, the stilt dance also recreated a part of the life of the residents in the middle of the mountains and forests.
The motivation to preserve and transmit
From a village that once “stepped into the silver screen”, Kăng today still continues the heroic spirit in the resistance war, preserving its identity so that the culture not only “lives” on film but also exists in life.
Mr. Poc remembers clearly the times when the villagers had to go deep into the forest to avoid enemy raids or had to move due to lack of water or disease. During those moves, the villagers assigned each other to preserve and protect the gong set.
Mr. Poc added: “This is the gong set that was featured in the movie The Silver Ring. Due to frequent use, some of the gongs are broken. The village has invited many skilled gong repairmen to “patch” the cracks and breakage and adjust the sound of the gongs.”
The village that was featured in the film has also moved to its current location, nestled among vast rubber and coffee plantations and protected by overlapping mountain ranges. Mr. Poc said: “Every time a new village is built, a new communal house is built, or an epidemic is overcome, people organize a buffalo feast and beat gongs to celebrate the victory. The gong is like a spiritual source, reflecting the indomitable will of the community in the journey to conquer difficulties. After being featured in the film, people are more aware of preserving, practicing and performing at many large and small events.”
A film can capture the best of a village, immortalizing it on the silver screen. But when culture is consciously preserved and practiced in daily life by a community, as in Ktăng village, that is true immortality.
For over 40 years, Mr. Poc has been a core member of the gong team. The stilt dance was sometimes interrupted, making the gong performance less special. Therefore, he directly teaches gongs to the younger generation and also works to restore the stilt dance so that the village gong team always has its own mark.
He proudly said: “When the gong team performed in Hanoi , many people immediately recognized it as gongs, the cultural identity of the Central Highlands”. He could not remember how many times he performed or how many titles he had won. But most recently, the Ktang village gong team won first prize at the Cultural Festival of Ethnic Groups in Dak Doa district (old) and represented them at the provincial festival held in April 2025.
From the story of the village elder, Mr. Xuin, Party Cell Secretary and Village Chief, also the leader of the gong team, said: Currently, the village has 198/199 households who are Bahnar, most of whom follow Protestantism or Catholicism, so many traditional festivals have been lost. "That is a big challenge in preserving culture, but the gong team still maintains its role, as a testament to the spirit of preserving the identity of generations," said Mr. Xuin.
Almost every roof in Ktang village used to have revolutionaries, many families had relatives who were martyrs. That tradition is like a source of water for today's life. Ktang still carries the spirit of a heroic village in both the resistance war and peacetime with achievements in economic development. The village has risen from poverty to become a new rural village, many households have an income of 400-500 million VND/year.
A film can capture the best of a village, immortalizing it on the silver screen. But when culture is consciously preserved and practiced in daily life by a community, as in Ktăng village, that is true immortality.
Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/chuyen-ngoi-lang-bahnar-tung-buoc-vao-phim-post565450.html
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