Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

Watching this film feels like sitting for three hours in a sauna waiting for something that never comes and that I don't even care about.

Usually, I love contemplative film where nothing happens. But it should come with a mastery in mise en scene, and a certain sobriety. Artistic boldness should still hold the audience for the duration to the very end. Yet this film offers nothing beyond its self-indulgent ravishing photography. The filmmaker clearly wants to inflict suffering on the viewer, but this experience is purposeless. And this sense of purposelessness, which one may assume is the philosophical meaning that the film tries to suggesst, is forced upon the viewer through half-hearted dialogue. In fact, the dialogue didn't hold enough attention in relating to the material around it to make it interesting.

It's simply an international coproduction by a Vietnamese filmmaker indented for highbrow international critics and festivals, made for the sake of being clever and 'cinephile'.

I grabbed my first chance to see this film in the cinema on a big screen. The film is a wonder in so many aspects and definitely live up to its Camera d'Or at Cannes, and also my own expectation. I love how realistic and organic every scene is about the daily life in Vietnam from the big city to the rural area. The first half deceived me a bit into thinking how simple the film had been and then it went on to astonish me with its dreamlike second half, so mesmerizing and even haunting. There are just so many brilliant scenes. The scene of the fighting roosters in early morning is simply a masterful in long take but also a brief scene, like of the buffaloes blocking the road is immediately thought provoking. That ending is above all, to me simply perfect. It's just so wonderful I would love to meet the filmmakers and shake hand with all of them :)

I don't see the point of reviewers who say a movie like this is slow and boring, and "nothing happens." (If you want a movie where indeed nothing happens, try "Goodbye, Dragon Inn.") Sure, there are longueurs, and not all the plot choices are good ones. But there is a quiet beauty about this film, and it is at its best deeply pleasurable. Some of the scenes and framing are like pictures in a museum. The uncertainties of time, place, and characters I often find annoying in other films are less irksome here. I think viewers who appreciative this kind of slow-paced movie, and are less concerned about a pulsing plot than an absorbing sensory experience, will like it.

Finding meaning and purpose in life can be a long and solitary journey, especially if one doesn't know how or where to look. So it is for a single, lonely thirtysomething seeker (Le Phong Vu) living in Saigon after moving there from his rural mountain village after most of his family emigrates to America. He feels empty and lost as he looks for a suitable path to follow, but nothing turns up, leaving him increasingly adrift and unfulfilled. However, when a family tragedy occurs, he must return home to pay final respects to a deceased loved one with his young, orphaned nephew (Nguyen Thinh) in tow. The journey thus becomes a metaphor for his search, an absorbing meditation on life, love, death, finding oneself and letting go of old ghosts from the past, including an old flame (Nguyen Thi Truc Quynh) who now has a more serious commitment. This odyssey is fittingly depicted cinematically with a series of long tracking shots and deliberately slow pacing to emphasize the extended time it takes to make such a measured, thoughtful and revelatory passage, one beautifully enhanced by positively gorgeous cinematography. It's the kind of film that gives similarly situated viewers much to think about, particularly given that they're likely to relate to the circumstances of their on-screen counterpart. However, writer-director Thien An Pham's debut film - winner of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival's Golden Camera Award for best premiere feature - could benefit handsomely from some judicious editing, especially in the second half. While this release is definitely a feast for the eyes, some sequences nevertheless go on needlessly long and could have been cut by about 20-30 minutes to reduce its patience-trying three-hour runtime. This shortcoming aside, though, "Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell" gives audiences a revealing look at the work of a gifted new talent with tremendous potential, one who successfully brings both beauty and inspiration to an insightful finished product. As trite as it may seem, finding our place in the cosmos rests more with the journey than the destination, as the protagonist discovers for himself, a realization many of us can no doubt relate to.

This film exposed me to the calm and simple life in rural Vietnam. This is definitely not an easy watch, and I'd recommend viewers to appreciate the serene narrative set within a dilemmatic situation.

I've not experienced Vietnamese culture, but I do get a rough idea of its relevance growing up in Southeast Asia. Majority of the film's scenes have a tranquil backdrop, yet it's inhabitants are constantly challenged with the realities of life.

To sit in a dark cinema for 3 hours observing the slow pace of life while contemplating the hidden meanings within the structures and nuances of life as a young Vietnamese, I feel refreshed and grateful for this cinematic experience.