Caméra d’Or – Tran Anh Hung
Prix de la jeunesse – Tran Anh Hung
The year 1993, like many others too, has movie experiences to suit most tastes. Movies that have you rolling with laughter; movies that move you to tears; movies that pump your adrenaline. And sometimes, not often as majestically as this next example, movies can be gentle, they can be hypnotic. A movie which serves as a kind of epiphany, the way the sinfully under-seen The Scent of Green Papaya does.
Both enigmatic and enchanting, The Scent of Green Papaya is the astonishing debut feature film of Vietnamese-French director, Trần Anh Hùng. You haven’t heard of him? Of course. A filmmaker who openly shrugged his shoulders at mere criticisms that his film was too languid. Trần might be something of a social pioneer, in that he wanted to represent his country of Vietnam as a place like any other. With human spirit, and not just stereotypes as war film villains.
Trần would go on to make two more films that would form an unofficial Vietnam trilogy, with Cyclo (1995) and The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000). With The Scent of Green Papaya, 1993 saw a stunning peak for Asian cinema, with a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film from the American Academy, alongside two other exceptional works: Hong Kong’s Farewell My Concubine and Taiwan’s The Wedding Banquet.
“Trần’s marvelous motion picture, is one of undeniable depth and a natural complexity.”
The Scent of Green Papaya also nabbed the New Filmmaker award at the César Awards, and two prizes at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, including the Caméra d’Or. And although the spoken language in the picture is Vietnamese, the film was actually produced in France. Thus, The Scent of Green Papaya remains the only film from Vietnam to go on and receive an Oscar nomination.
Trần’s marvelous motion picture, is one of undeniable depth and a natural complexity. It has the clean look and sunshiney vibe of a perfectly serene open-air reality. Plot aside, The Scent of Green Papaya demonstrates some truly wonderful production design. So detailed and authentic, contributing to the country’s declining social landscape of 1951. A slice-of-life portrait of culture and traditions, executed with a simplicity, without diminishing the importance of Vietnam’s heritage.
The sound design, and smells you can almost absorb, define a loving snippet of southeast Asia. The chirping of the crickets is particularly tranquilizing. Incredibly, even though the meditative, intimate aura of the film puts you right there, it was shot on a soundstage in France. A stunning achievement, given the beautiful, expansive world we are immediately invited into. A pleasure for the senses. With the crew allowed full control of the lighting, there is a vivid clarity to every frame – thankfully restored all these years.
“The moment she cuts open a papaya, and beams at the glistening insides – that rapturous smile is worth a thousand words.”
The Scent of Green Papaya is seamlessly split into two parts. In Saigon, 1951, adorably curious Mùi (Man San Lu), is a 10 year-old girl hired to assist in the serving of a middle-class family. Educated on the day-to-day routines – laundry, food preparation, cleaning surfaces – by the elder of the house helps. Mùi is frowned upon by the mischievous younger son – you know, general taunting, peeing in a vase, dangling dead chameleon on the end of a stick.
Elsewhere, and serving as background to the main story, there’s a mourning grandmother, a fleeting, cheating father, a mother struggling to make ends meet with the little money left once the father has swiped his share. When we leap ten years ahead, with the family’s financial decline, it means Mùi, now 20 (Trân Nu Yên-Khê), is re-assigned to friend of the family, classical musician, Khuyen.
With a far greater wealth, Khuyen also has a fiancé, but is somewhat neglectful towards her. The whiff of romantic attraction between Mùi and Khuyen creeps up on both of them. He discovers her trying on a dress; she finds his drawings of her. The lingering, distanced atmosphere between them is enticingly captured.
The character of Mùi is a fascinating one. A peaceful, observant soul it seems, whose detailed eye for the world around her provides much of the film’s point of view. From the gloopy white sap on the leaf, or the rain-speckled frog, to the cricket within the bamboo cage, or the ants immersed in candle wax. The sensory journey Mùi follows, appears to be a joyful experience. The moment she cuts open a papaya, and beams at the glistening insides – that rapturous smile is worth a thousand words.
“The camera can pan slowly, or hold on the gorgeous visuals, then glide like silk as naturally as a welcome breeze.”
And there’s a key to the film’s charm. There is very little dialogue, and scenes are often stretched out and just left to breathe. And those luminous, beautiful images do a lot of the film’s talking. The camera’s poise and movement, from cinematographer Benoît Delhomme, kind of peers and sweeps here and there. Never showy, never exuberant, but pretty much always fueling a lush resonance.
There are timely, vivid moments of depth, with both character and scenery. Someone will enter the frame, a room perhaps, just as someone else turns their back. Walls are layered in front of our eyes, with inviting windows opening a breadth of space for us. The camera can pan slowly, or hold on the gorgeous visuals, then glide like silk as naturally as a welcome breeze.
The whole mise en scène is tantalizing, soothing, offering us a sense of the lyrical or the poetic. Vietnamese composer, Tôn-Thât Tiêt, finds just the right balance throughout, even when the film tipples into minor drama. The Scent of Green Papaya is certainly subdued, but the understated, contemplative progression grants the film the rightful place in cinema’s – not just from Asia – high points of complete allure and graceful impact.
Writer-director, Trần Anh Hùng, is sadly unheard of now. And even those digging back their filmic memories of the 1990s, many of them will hold their hands up to knowing his appeal and talent. Like the old man who appears a couple of times, asking about the grandmother, a woman he has loved for decades, but to no avail. The Scent of Green Papaya embraces the sense of love, no matter the reciprocation. It’s a film to treasure for as long as you can.
