Slow cinema is a subgenre whose works can pose a significant challenge to those not accustomed to its patient rhythms, long running times, and simple plots. However, moviegoers willing to tune into the wavelengths of these films are often rewarded with hypnotic, meditative gems that tap into the larger, unspoken undercurrents of life and the world. This is the case with Phạm Thiên Ân Inside the yellow cocoon shell, winner of the Camera d'Or (i.e. Best Debut) at last year's Cannes Film Festival. A three-hour drama whose slender story serves as the skeleton for a formally brilliant examination of loss, faith, family, and connection, it's the first masterpiece of the year, and a must-see for anyone interested in more than just blockbuster fare.
Premiering in theaters on January 19 Inside the yellow cocoon shell It is, from a narrative standpoint, deceptively simple. Thien (Le Vuong Vu), a bachelor in his twenties, is called in while passing through Saigon to help deal with a family emergency. In his rural Vietnamese hometown, his sister-in-law Hanh has been killed in a car accident, and since her husband (Thinh's brother) Tam has been cut off and fled to parts unknown, her 5-year-old son Dao (Nguyen Thienh) has taken over. He is now an orphan. Upon his return, Thien Dao takes him under his wing while overseeing Hanh's funeral arrangements as well as reconnecting with those he has not seen since he left (and the rest of his clan emigrated to the United States). These individuals include his friend Truong (Vu Ngoc Manh) and nun Thao (Nguyen Thi Truc Quynh), his ex-girlfriend for whom he still has feelings. Eventually, Thane embarks on a quest to find his brother, which leads him to the vast countryside.
It's an understatement to say that Inside the yellow cocoon shell Light on the job. However, it makes up for its lack of a notable (not to mention pulse-pounding) incident with a sumptuous mood conjured by massive aesthetics. Directing Asian contemporaries like Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Bi Gan (which was his first film Kylie Blues It seems to be a live effect), Phạm Thiên Ân shows most of the scenes in long, uninterrupted shots.
These are highlighted by a 25-minute exposition that begins on a farm as Thien and Truong discuss the costs of Hanh's funeral, moves to Thien riding his motorcycle on dirt roads toward a group of wooden houses, and concludes with him sitting and chatting with elderly Mr. Le (Nguyen Van Le, who made Hanh's funeral shroud, and after refusing to pay again for the job, spoke to Thien about his service in the Vietnam War. In terms of duration, it is an impressive achievement. However, what makes it truly stunning is the craftsmanship of Pham Thien Anh and Dinh Duy Hung's cinematography, which alternates between static compositions, slow zooms and fluid pans – around, within and across outdoor and indoor spaces – with astonishing grace and expression.
In this centerpiece and its multiple kin sequences, Phạm Thiên Ân conceals and reveals. At the same time, his photography moves at a meditative, mobile pace, heightening the feeling that Thien is floating across the world – an impression amplified by vistas of Vietnam's rural villages, valleys and mountains covered in a layer of fog that seems oppressive. on the inhabitants of Earth, as well as a dream in which Thane silently rides his bikes along foggy roads dotted with the headlights of other vehicles. When Thien Thao asks if she will wait for him, her response could be an expression of his current state: “I feel like I am drifting. I find myself disturbed and suffocated. It is as if a thick cloud surrounds me. It is preventing me from reaching the light.”
The billowing Phạm Thiên Ân invites contemplation in his deep-focus images, which often frame figures in doorways, windows and narrow corridors, and which the director packs full of detail, from Mr. Le's military certificates and family photos, to chickens hidden under cages on the floor, to reflected faces. In mirrors and off-center surfaces. Inside the yellow cocoon shell He feels at once ethereal and weighty, as the ghosts of the past always surround Thane, and yet the burdens of the present—including his grief, alienation, and confusion—sit heavy on his shoulders and heart. Whether it's the glowing clock in the dark, its ticking hands signaling ominous, unstoppable progress, or Thien's motorcycle journeys across this pastoral land, the film casts a meditative, borderline hallucinatory spell. The boundaries between the real and the unreal are tenuous, and that's even without taking into account Thane's penchant for magic tricks, which he uses to keep Dao's spirits up in the wake of his mother's sudden death.
In the heart…or in the middle Inside the yellow cocoon shellThe confusion and alienation of purgatory is Thane's spiritual crisis. “The existence of faith is a mysterious thing…I want to believe, but I can't,” he said early on, and Hanh's subsequent death, and its aftermath, exacerbated rather than clarified his questions about God. Like Thao, he is torn between his desire for sacred communion and human pleasure, unable to satisfactorily reconcile the majestic beauty of the world (where the presence of the Almighty can be felt) with the inherent contradictions of the divine will, embodied in the fact that Tam and Hanh were married by the Church (“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder”) However, Tam later escaped and Hanh was returned to heaven.
Striking a balance between prosperous and exhausting, Inside the yellow cocoon shell It is a picture of an untethered man. Searching for stability and unity along mysterious roads and in remote fields and dwellings, Thane ultimately searches for Tam in vain, locating only more empty and unsatisfying spaces that leave him in a state of suspended animation. At a roadside spot where he seeks to repair his motorcycle, an elderly woman discusses the misery of the dead, the smell of decaying life, and the need to “seek salvation through devotion to prayer and attendance at Mass…compared to eternity it is but a fleeting moment.” However, unable to find solace in God or fantasies of the afterlife (even those that comfort Dao), Thane remains an aimless wanderer stuck between worlds, floating along currents he cannot control. Inside the yellow cocoon shell He asks something similar of his viewers, forcing them to submit to his quiet, ruminative rhythms. Those who do will be well rewarded.
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