F. Dostoevsky's literary works in the contemporary Vietnamese movie: inter-semiotic and inter-cultural travels

This article examines Le Van Kiet’s 2014 film Dịu dàng (Gentle) as an instance of inter-semiotic and cross-cultural adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella A Gentle Creature. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of inter-semiotic translation and cross-cultural criticism, the article argues that the film reinterprets Dostoevsky’s characteristic existentialism and profound psychological conflict by transposing them into the context of post-colonial, post-Doi Moi (Renovation) Vietnam, employing a naturalistic aesthetic and deliberate cultural localization strategies. In an era of global cultural convergence, the film emerges as an intertextual practice, where Vietnamese cinema engages in a profound dialogue with the global literary canon by redefining its socio-cultural coordinates. This process, in turn, forges new pathways for reimagining Vietnamese identity and its people in the contemporary era.