Scent of Green Papaya
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[edit] Blurb
Eating, sleeping, and staying clean...Life's most basic concerns. Yet they take on a transcendent quality in this visually delicious film, known in French as L'odeur de la Papaye Verte, and in Vietnamese as Mui Du Du Xanh. With only the barest minimum of dialogue, The Scent of Green Papaya tells the 1940's story of a young orphan girl named Mui, who goes to work as a domestic servant in the troubled household of a Saigon merchant family. Under the mentorship of the family's elderly housekeeper, Mui is a quick study in becoming adept at her daily duties, which she performs with diligence and grace. Early on, she learns that the family has lost a daughter named Tó, who would have been just about Mui's age, and over time, the mother's affection for her grows, and Mui becomes like a daughter herself.
Through her eyes, we witness the day-to-day activities of the household, from the preparation of food and daily cleaning rituals, to the troubled inner workings of the family dynamics.[1]
[edit] View from Nowhere
[edit] Other Views from Nowhere
It seems impossible how a plot so simple, how the day to day experience of a young Vietnamese servant as she learns her work, observing the very ordinary uneventful life of the family she serves, can be so exquisitely beautiful.
But every second is a fresh wonder to savour and sense, but the wonders are everyday things and happenings.
I only found an explanation by reading another review, this is a film based on a Buddhist view of life, so we share with the servant Mui her living absolutely for the present moment, observing everything afresh, being enriched by her silent presence as the family are in the film. This is made possible by the combination of superb photography and minimal dialogue riveting our attention on Mui.
The Buddhist culture of the film explains why when Mui is grown up and working for a young musician he recognises Mui in a bust of Buddha.
Mui is played by two actresses, Man San Lu as a child of 10 and Tran Nu Yen-Khe age twenty, and fortunately both actresses are able to portray the extraordinary personality of Mui.
This master work is probably unique in the power of its simplicity. [2]
