This film by new Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Thien An will have you pondering, throughout the film, about what the title might mean.
“Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” takes place in Vietnam during a lot of overcast, rainy skies. It begins with a silly big-headed sports mascot walking on the sidelines of a soccer game. Next to the field is an outdoor bistro of sorts where a gorgeous woman (Ngo Thuy Tien) in a sparkly red dress tries to convince three men to try the restaurant’s special beer.
Thien (Le Phong Vu), also the middle name of the filmmaker, is the guy in a red shirt who doesn’t say much at this table visited by the red dress. His parents immigrated to the US some time ago while he moved from the country to Saigon. He doesn’t appear to have a job or any interests, except massages. I don’t think he smiled once. He’s a blah guy.
He and his two companions at the bistro appear to be talking about religion. He tells them that the existence of faith is ambiguous. “I want to believe, but I can’t. I’ve tried searching for it many times.” It’s hard to understand this. Why question faith specifically – why not God?
Suddenly there is an inexplicable car accident. I assume it’s the one that killed Thien’s sister-in-law. What we do know is that despite being steps from the crash, Thien and his two friends do not investigate it.
Perhaps he is an Odysseus-like character traveling through the film searching – but for what? When he thinks he has found it, whether in the form of a girl or a long-lost brother, the apparition or dream evaporates.
Thien just can’t find what he’s searching for, even when it may be right in front of him – as when his little nephew survives the car crash. The little boy becomes an orphan and Thien is his only surviving relative. Seems like an obvious match for adoption – but Thien not only can’t tell the boy his mother is dead, but takes him to an orphanage.
Though “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” won recognition as an outstanding first feature debut at the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and also won the André Bazin Prize from Cahiers du Cinema with a monetary grant, I just couldn’t appreciate it.
Though lauded for its sense of poetry, use of nature and focus on loss, I found its three-hour run time excessive and the slow action frustrating.
Critics are being asked to consider it for Best Cinematography, Best International Feature, and Best First Feature for 2024. I know there were significant tricks to capturing images in the dark, and filming the overcast skies, but I favor the warm lights (in the dark) and frigid white snowscapes of Turkish master cinematographers Gökhan Tiryaki (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) and Cevahir Sahin and Kursat Resin (About Dry Grasses) whose titles are easily woven into the understanding of their respective films.
Credits
Director/Writer: Pham Thien An
Cast: Le Phong Vu, Nguyen Thinh, Vu Ngoc Manh, Nguyen Thi Truc Quynh, Nguyen Van Lu’u, Ngo Thuy Tien and Phi Dieu
Distributed by: CJ CGV
Box office: US $348,738
Cinematography: Đinh Duy Hưng
Language: Vietnamese
Release: Aug. 11, 2023 (Vietnam) and Jan. 19, 2024 in US (limited)
. . .
Join us on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/itsjustmovies!