The Brooklyn Rail

Thien An Pham’s first feature film, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023), premiered during the Directors’ Fortnight at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Across evocative landscapes of urban and rural Vietnam, Pham’s eponymous protagonist (played by Le Phong Vu) turns an experience of grief into an exploration of the soul through mesmerizing, languishing images of stunning oneiric beauty.

Thien’s life in Ho Chi Minh City suddenly shifts when a series of urgent phone calls awake him to a motorbike accident, which killed his sister-in-law and injured his nephew. As an immediate next-of-kin, he sets out to recover the body and transport it for burial in their home village, attending to the funeral preparations. While doing so Thien confronts his new responsibilities as well as the real and reimagined memories of his own past.

At the start of the film, Thien appears like a relatively care-free young man. He drinks with his friends, goes to a sauna, and receives an erotic massage in a parlor. But even then, he’s troubled; his words indicate that these moments don’t quite satisfy him. This is evidenced in the opening scene when his two friends argue. One wants to leave the city for rural life; the other mocks this choice, caricaturing a search for village authenticity as a short-lived fantasy. Thien stays quiet until pushed to speak. “The existence of faith is ambiguous,” he eventually says. He wants to believe in God, but he can’t. This admission explains much of his later dilemmas and unspoken ruminations.

With news of the accident, Thien abruptly turns into a caregiver to his five-year-old nephew Dao (Nguyen Thinh), whom he brings home from the hospital. The child inquires about the whereabouts of his mother. This forces Thien to display emotional maturity, finding the right words to the child. We discover a sensitive side of Thien—that of love. Dao latches onto Thien as his only relative, while Thien latches onto Dao as someone who needs him in an otherwise empty existence inside a small studio apartment. They rely on each other’s company for consolation, and the eruption of Dao in Thien’s life marks an end to a meaningless, escapist urban life.

The circumstances of Thien’s forced return to his home village intersect with those that had led to his initial departure. The physical journey becomes a spiritual and intimate one. Amid the backdrop of Vietnam’s recent modernization and urbanization (as well as autobiographical elements), the film questions faith and death as two interrelated objects of inquiry pertaining to selfhood and purpose. There are multiple cues of these quests in the film in addition to more explicit scenes, such as the funeral of Dao’s mother, experienced with the austere solemnity of a sacrament and a wider rite of passage. Because of the stiffness of the religious scenes, we empathize with Thien’s sense of suffocation. On the other hand, the masseuse Thien visits in the city lights candles in a churchly manner that exude ritualistic piousness, especially when we later know about Thien’s complicated infatuation with an unavailable woman. Her movements are slow, intentional—much like the film itself—and here Thien is a voyeur. He chooses to watch that ceremonial gesture without being forced into becoming an active participant.

Contemplative scenes that dominate the film contrast deeply with moments when Thien loses himself to pleasure (or it is lust and sloth?). For instance, in a karaoke bar, he sings alone while excessively smoking and drinking. Drunkenness becomes an allegory for errancy, self-harm in reneging his true self, exemplifying the pervasive effect of uprooting urban life. In the village, Thien’s introverted self is punctuated by duty—to Dao, to his community—which positions him as split between ambiguity, as if the two lifestyles and identities can’t quite coexist within himself.

The film navigates between Thien’s dreams and flashbacks, as well as scenes that propel the story in the aftermath of the car accident. This duality does suggest the possibility of complementarity in two worlds that slip into each other, as if they were one for the person who experiences them. Reality is plural and blurry; it is knowledge and sensation, which is reinforced by a teal palette in which blue fades into green and vice versa as two values that marry for infinity. Touches of viridian remind of the uncanniness of Thien’s journey, that monochromatic religious encounters emphasize in its all-or-nothing seriousness. The coolness and desaturation of death contrast with those of Ho Chi Minh City’s karaoke bar, bright fuchsia and other pulsating, loud colors that do not belong to Thien’s rural, traditional life.

The film relies on quiet symbolism to communicate the fluid boundary of realism and surrealism. Fog is ever present in the film. It embalms Thien’s mountainous village like a protective envelope, its thickness evocative of Thien’s sinuous excavation of memories. At times we feel that a vagueness of sight correlates with Thien’s uncertain path. He cannot see across that wall; a parabolic incarnation of faith that remains visible but largely out of touch. Similarly, curvy roads, sharp crossroads, and motorbikes continuously appear. When Thien travels to the village or when he searches for his brother—Dao’s estranged father—these moments embody the expanse of mobility. When Thien drives and multiple motorbikes cross his path, we’re reminded of the accident and the hurdles he must overcome. Thien often holds roosters—a zodiac animal linked with courage and resilience. Roosters see the light in darkness, not unlike what Thien aspires to do.

Throughout the film, Thien An Pham remains firmly in control of the camera. This is a remarkable feat as a self-taught filmmaker on his feature debut. He shows a versatile and playful way of conveying emotion and intent via a variety of slow camera moves and diverse shots and cuts, including cutaways. For instance, in one scene the camera pans to the group of friends, imitating a page we’re turning as the story’s stakes and main events are established. When Thien sits with a village elder who shares some of his wartime memories with the young man, the camera agonizingly zooms on their conversation; we’re leaning closer as we enter into the life of the old man, sliding into the past. The characters are always contextualized in their environment and landscape, both of which become as central to the introspective story as the limited dialogues.

At the US premiere of Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell at the recent New York Film Festival, Pham introduced the film as slow, and encouraged viewers to “keep an open mind” about it. For all its stunning aesthetics that elevate the power of visual art, the film leaves us wanting narratively. It’s evident that each shot has been thoroughly and generously crafted like a single deep breath. Yet outstanding visuals sometimes carry or make up for an unfulfilling storyline. This obsessive attention to detail tends to drag the three-hour-long film, as the story advancement remains meandering and sedating with minimal music, repetitive loops, and an impression that we reluctantly join Thien in his long, endless daze.