The Scent of Green Papaya
French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung is quickly becoming one of my favourites with his marvellously-detailed and calming meditations on life in Vietnam. That’s why I was thrilled to find out that he has a new project on the horizon after an extended sabbatical. I Come With the Rain, featuring Josh Hartnett, puts Tran Anh Hung at the helm of a thriller and should be a extraordinary change. Release details are sketchy for North America, sadly, and it seems a bit of a mystery as to when it will come out here.
Nevertheless, Tran Anh Hung’s debut continues to satisfy with each viewing. The Scent of Green Papaya, from 1993, is a remarkable motion picture with an elegant Tôn-Thât Tiêt score. This is a film that requires a patient, peaceful attitude. It takes its time, seeps in, and settles gently. Tran Anh Hung’s The Vertical Ray of the Sun follows a similar pattern, setting up a surprisingly tumultuous set of characters and storylines in a peaceful, lush environment.
I daresay that lovers of conventional movies need not apply, but my love of this film is so deep that I’d rather not deny it to anyone. True lovers of film, music, or art prefer not to remain in the shadows alone with their “obscure” musical acts or pictures. Instead, the desire to share and to shout from the mountaintops of this love and this infatuation should be at the fore. Conventional moviegoers will need to learn to calm down and breathe when experiencing Tran Anh Hung’s film, doubtlessly, but the final experience will be gratifying and comforting.
The Scent of Green Papaya tells a story based in Vietnam between the late 1940s and early 1960s. We are given access to the story through the eyes of a servant girl, Mui (Man San Lu), as she takes up with a family at the age of ten. She is simple and wise beyond her years. Happily, we notice what she notices as she observes the plants in the green garden of her employers or checks out a frog playing in a puddle. It is a peaceful existence, to be sure, and Mui goes about her work good-naturedly and gladly.
As such, the workings of the household are shown only through her eyes. Mui doesn’t understand the complexity behind the domestic struggles, but she (and we) can piece together some details. The father is a drinker and leaves the home with all of the family’s money periodically. The mother works hard to raise her children. The family has lost a daughter and Mui begins to take the place of their deceased child. The cycles of blame, betrayal, anger, and so forth are not the focus of Mui’s observances, however. Instead, she is more concerned with the bugs, the fruit, and the natural world around her.
Of course, Mui grows older and things become more complicated in her life. She leaves her original employers in a tearful sequence and, at age 20, becomes a servant for a young man who is a friend of her original employers. There are hints of romance, even sex, but Tran Anh Hung’s simple and peaceful approach creates a film more dedicated to the poetry of love and humanity and less dedicated to the anger and traditional dramatic effects we might be used to in North American cinema.
Roger Ebert, when discussing The Scent of Green Papaya, compares the film to a piece of soothing music. This is certainly true. There is visual perfection here, of course, and the pace of life given to the movie’s characters is engrossing. There is value in the simplicity and magic in the work that Mui does. She takes joy in preparing a lovely meal for her employers, takes pride in doing her tasks correctly and efficiently, and doesn’t look back or wonder how or why she is just a servant girl. In her mind and in the minds of all observers, this is a non-issue. Mui is a woman who has learned to really, really enjoy life. We should be so lucky.
Trailer:
