The Suitcase of Cinema — Vietnam
by Javier Solórzano Casarin
“The Scent of Green Papaya” (1993)
Tran Anh Hung
It is unfortunate but Vietnam is for many synonymous with war. Novels, history books and movies have insisted on reminding us that Vietnam has been the site of countless armed conflicts. It is true that since its birth as a nation it has suffered colonization or invasion — whatever you want to call it — by three world powers. Consequently, it gained its independence from Imperial China in 938 A.D., from France in 1954 and from the United States in 1975.
In the second half of the 20th century, after regaining its autonomy, the country was divided into north and south. In the north, communist guerrillas known as the Vietcong were formed. They fought against the troops in the south, where the base of operations was the city of Saigon. The United States, in its never-ending struggle to spread its own one sided and authoritarian version of “freedom and democracy”, considered the incipient communist threat in Vietnam to be a danger “to the rest of the world”. One of the worst and longest wars in contemporary history was waged. It left indelible scars on the Vietnamese nation.
The other side of the coin, the one we rarely see or hear about in the news, is that Vietnam is a country beautiful in culture, tradition, gastronomy and history. A country that nurtures spirituality and harmony with the natural world that surrounds it.
This is the face of Vietnam which director Tran Anh Hung (“Tokyo Blues”) portrays in his lyrical cinematic whisper called “The Scent of Green Papaya”.
The story begins with sweet Mui, a peculiar girl with big inquisitive eyes who starts her job as a domestic servant in an upper-class house in 1952 Saigon. It is a traditional household where the matriarch is in charge of the order and balance of the family.
The father stays in his room where he plays an oriental guitar and takes afternoon naps. The grandmother is cloistered on the top floor — a shrine with an altar where photos of her husband and granddaughter are displayed — she spends her days mourning and praying for them. The mother has not gotten over the death of her young daughter. The daily efforts of maintaining a home, a fine fabrics business and a husband who remains oblivious to reality, himself battling his inner demons, afflicts her with an exhaustion apparent to all.
The three children are left only to watch. A teenager who takes to the streets with a desire to socialize beyond the family, and two boys who wander among the rooms of the house, looking to do something with their time while on vacation.
Mui becomes not only a surrogate daughter but she also plays the simultaneous role of a witness to the unstable domestic dynamics and a catalyst for the important events that begin to unfold. Through her empathetic and sensitive eyes, we gain insight into the human drama that faintly unfolds. This is Anh Hung’s great cinematic achievement. To capture through camera movements, lighting, sound design and music, the underlying fragility that permeates the mystical language.
Like other poets of cinema (Terrence Malick, Wong Kar-Wai, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Bresson) Anh Hung is very conscientious in configuring compositions where color and shots enrich the intimacy between the image and spectator. With them he intensifies those sensations that establish the subconscious connection we share with the film.
The sharp strings of the musical score, the space almost transgressed by the forbidden desires of the characters, the camera that dances stealthily among the nooks and crannies of the residence, the tiny elements dictated by nature, and the gradual light that evokes warm and cold temperaments — the work of French cinematographer Benoit Delhomme -; catechisms that whisper the images of a Vietnam that appeals to the senses and the most sublime emotions.
