Pham Thien An's Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell deservedly won the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 2023. It was released in America, briefly, in January, was praised by critics, but has baffled or infuriated the general public. This is not surprising for a very slow. three hour flick about the spiritual crisis of a young Vietnamese man. Fans of Chantal Akerman, Bela Tar, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul should step right up, but if these names are a mystery to you, pause. Mr. Pham employs extremely long takes, sometimes with tracking shots, most often with a stationary camera. The shots are not arbitrary attempts to show-off, but are linked with the film's themes and its attempt to trace the arc of its subject's religious quest.
The protagonist, also named Thien (Le Phong Vu), is a somewhat aimless twentysomething who, we eventually learn, records and edits wedding videos in Saigon. Thien's sister-in-law, Hanh, dies suddenly in an accident, leaving behind her five year old, Dao. Thien must travel with his nephew and the corpse back to the rural town their families hail from. After the funeral, family and friends keep vigil at the local chapel. Thien finds a sanctuary for Dao at Catholic home where one of Dao's caregivers is a former flame of Thien's who has donned the habit. Dao's father (Thien's brother),Tam, disappeared years ago and Thien spends the last section of the film searching for both Tam and a sense of solace for his own troubled soul. He dreams of almost finding Tam, but his brother remains elusive. The film ends with Thien bathing baptismally in water, finding peace, at least for a moment. This points to a new beginning for Thien, the rebirth that is augured by the title and is found everywhere in nature in this beauteous film.
The pantheistic Catholicism of Inside the Yellow Cocoon should not have moved an apostate Catholic like me, but Mr. Pham's skill at integrating his themes within his dawdling narrative stunned me. Take the opening sequence, which introduces us to Thien in Saigon. The scene is set at a cafe which adjoins a scholastic soccer arena. Pham shows us a glimpse of the game with a mascot gyrating then tracks right to a stationary shot of his protagonist and his cronies enjoying a beer. Within this lengthy set-up, the parameters of film's spiritual conflict are framed: doubt versus religion with Thien an uneasy proponent of faith. The tone of the scene belies the serious conversation. These are indolent, capitalistic young adults luxuriating in their leisure as much as brewpub denizens do in my town of Portland. Suddenly, we hear a terrible crash and the camera tracks right to a scene of a motorcycle crash. Death is juxtaposed with life's sensual pleasures.
This juxtaposition occurs again when Thien receives a call telling him of Hanh's death. Tien is in a massage parlor, but the call prevents him from receiving a happy ending. Pham films this scene with screens and partitions partially obscuring our view, a strategy he employs throughout. Graven images, mesh, curtains and the like add to the visual texture of the film, but also point to one of Pham's central themes: that the ultimate veil of existence cannot be parted until death. The mystery of the afterlife cannot be parsed in this life and must be met with faith by believers.
Pham also juxtaposes corporeal reality with intimations of the beyond in another lengthy sequence. Thien is tasked with paying the maker of Hanh's funeral shroud. That gentleman is an elderly one, initially too proud to take payment. The camera. at first, views the interaction between Thien and the shroud maker outside his abode through a window. Thien and the man achieve a rapport with the shroud maker reminiscing about his service in the South Vietnamese Army. The camera zooms into the room as the two become more intimate. The camera eventually pans the room festooned with religious icons and army certificates. The shroud maker shows Thien the bullet that wounded him in the war. The shroud maker then takes Thien's hand to show him his wound, an image of corporeal mortality extremely similar to Caravaggio's The Incredulity of Saint Thomas. Pham then boldly cuts to a shot of a window with tattered screens that shouts out to Lee Miller's Portrait of Space. The tactile body is juxtaposed with intimations of infinite space.
Pham's Catholic rigor will limit his appeal, much as it did for Rossellini and Bresson. Yet, his vision is very much his own and Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell palpitates with a very personal spiritual fervor. The parishioners go about their religious duties dwarfed by the cycles of nature. Yet, their Catholic rituals pay homage to the greater natural rituals that occur on Earth whether they be constructed by chaos or Yahweh. The sun also rises. The beauty of the rituals in Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell belies Pham's belief. I may not share Pham's belief, but I do find a sense of shared reality in his work that I find heartening. The film is a mammoth masterpiece with many avenues to explore and I haven't even brought up its reference to It's a Wonderful Life. A masterpiece then, for those who wish to seek it.
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