The Scent of Green Papaya

As I sat through Tran Anh Hung’s 1993 film “The Scent of Green Papaya.” I was brought into a world full of beauty but also confinement. Hung creates the feeling of being trapped as created by the plot and the scenery. We watch as all our characters are confined in one area, to dwell in their miserable or their seemingly lackluster misfortune.

Hung creates a beautiful and visually stimulating movie that it blinds us from the dreadful situation that the characters are put in. The characters are blinded by their space that they no longer know what true happiness and freedom is but rather perceive it as something artificial. The mother exemplifies the perfect image of the trap women are put upon since birth during the era. A woman that bears the children manages the household, and also works, while the husband gambles away not only the family’s money but his wife’s hard earned money. The wife sees it as a blessing every time her husband returns. In reality this is not a blessing, however the beautiful world that Hung  puts us in makes it hard to believe that ugly things can exist.

The end gives us a glimmering ray of hope and serenity, but hope for what precisely is what confuses me. Mui is deluded away from what true happiness is, being raped and pregnant by  a man that chose to take care of you instead of leave you should not be what we should all aspire to be. To put the ending scene in a graceful and hopeful light seems unfair in this sense.

However I appreciate Hung’s artistic integrity. The memorizing beauty in “The Scent of Green Papaya,” helps us view the quality of life in Vietnam as well as the beauty that the Vietnamese value.

Catherine Vu

Did you like this post? Then please take the time to rate it (above) and share it (below). Ratings for top posts are listed on the sidebar. Sharing (on email, Facebook, etc.) helps spread the word about diaCRITICS. Thanks!

3 COMMENTS

  1. Things are no longer innocent when a young woman is illiterate. The aesthetically innocent and lovely child is now handicapped because she can’t read is a direct result of Third World poverty. But Hung manages to soften the harsh reality with Confucian impressionistic strokes by presenting scenes of paternal caring as seen at the end of the movie when the young man tries to teach her how to read. I believe we should focus only on Hung’s talent in cinematography and the film being a simple, fairy tale.

  2. I showed this movie to a class last month, and the students found the closed space stifling. That is part of the point, and it makes us bristle at what the female characters, in particular, accept for lack of broader horizons.

    However, the formal beauty of that enclosed space also shows the independence of Vietnam in the midst of war; we hear planes, and we know that there is a curfew, but otherwise life goes on as it would have.

    I don’t agree at all that Mui was raped. Despite the class difference and the unlikelihood that she will be able to marry the father of her child, she has been in love with this man for years–even though we might question the sincerity of that love–and is radiant at the end of the film. On the other hand, Hung himself has stated in interviews that he doesn’t see the end as optimistic (sorry I don’t have the reference in front of me).

    Thanks for your post.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here