Phạm Thiên wrote and directed Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, his impressive feature debut, an ambitious transcendental story with epic running time (three hours).
Grade: A-
The film world-premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at the 2023 Cannes Film Fest, where it won the Caméra d’Or, awarded for the best first feature (in all the sections).
Pham Thien An’s 2019 Cannes short film entry, “Stay Awake, Be Ready,” which won the Illy Short Film Award in the Directors’ Fortnight, inspired Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell.
Thien’s sister-in-law Teresa dies in a motorcycle accident in Saigon, but her young son Dao survives the crash. Thien takes both Dao and his sister-in-law’s body to the rural village where he grew up, observing life in the countryside.
The image of the sister-in-law’s coffin in a van may suggest that this is the cocoon from which eternal life will spring.
Thien meets an old man who fought in the Vietnam War, who tells him stories of surviving.
He goes out hunting with his host and bonds with Dao, and awkwardly reconnects with Thao, a childhood friend, who has since become a nun. He arranges for Dao to be taken to the school where she works, in which most of the students are highlanders.
Thien leaves the village and begins aimlessly searching for his missing brother Tam, telling him that the wife he abandoned was dead and his son needed cared. He learns that his brother had briefly gone to seminary and had considered becoming a priest, before deciding to marry instead.
He shows a wedding picture of the two, which was found on Teresa’s body, and talks with people there, but the search is ultimately fruitless.
Past and present, reality and dreams, collide in Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, an absorbing spiritual meditation on death, loss, and faith.
The director’s style is defined by shooting through doorways and windows, or variations of veils and draperies, suggesting the illusive, fleeting nature of truth, seemingly reachable but not quite.
There are references to Catholic iconography, such as a sickly bird, which Thiên picks up and nurses back to health, an allusion to the Holy Spirit as a dove.
The director had said that to be a metaphor or symbol for people trapped chasing after fame or fortune and to escape the “shell” requires some existential soul-searching.
The film was given limited release in the U.S by Kino Lorber in January 2024.
Cast
Lê Phong Vũ as Thiện
Nguyễn Thịnh as Đạo
Nguyễn Thị Trúc Quỳnh as Thảo
Vũ Ngọc Mạnh as Trung
