The Scent of Green Papaya/Mùi đu đủ Xanh/L'Odeur de la Papaye Verte (1993) - Hung's debut is pure visual poetry

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Vietnamese Movie of the Year

Man San Lu looks probingly at us on the poster for Tran Anh Hung's The Scent of Green Papaya

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We follow the maid Mui, who lives with a Vietnamese merchant family in Saigon in 1951, as a tragedy disrupts them. Ten years later the now beautiful young woman Mui becomes the bone of contention between her masters.

Dialog is switched out for reticence and lyrical communication, beautiful Chopin as well as original compositions, by Tiêt Tôn-Thât (The Buffalo Boy/Mùa Len Trâu (2004)), mixed with the sounds of the important garden in the film. Green Papaya is a sensual and beautiful, quiet film in naturally radiant colors.
One reservation: The film's obsession with ants is a little excessive.
Green Papaya is the debut feature of great Vietnamese writer-director Tran Anh Hung (Cyclo/Xích Lô (1995)). His wife Tran Nu Yên-Khê (Cyclo) portrays the older Mui.

 

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1993 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch the American trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly 18 mil. francs, equal to approximately 3.3 mil. $
Box office: 1.7 - 1.9 mil. $ (North America only)
= Unknown
[The film was shot entirely on a soundstage in Boulogne, France. It won the Camera d'Or and the 'Award of the Youth French Film' at Cannes as well as the César (French Oscar) award for Best First Work, and was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, which it lost to the great crowdpleaser Belle Epoque (1992). Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect 4 star review. Its world gross is unfortunately not out, but with its base in France, where art films are seen more widely than in most other countries, the film could well have been a box office success. It is fresh at 100 % with an 8.1 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Scent of Green Papaya?