Early into Pham Thien An’s sprawling, stupefying Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, there’s a shot that manifests Caravaggio inside a shack in rural Vietnam. Having traveled from Saigon to his home village to attend the funeral of his sister-in-law, Thien (Le Phong Vu) is visiting a local elder who sowed a shroud for the departed. The twenty-something wants to pay for the service; the old man doesn’t take money from neighbors. He does accept the company, though, and very generously spills a whole cascade of memories from the Vietnam War, laying bare an old bullet scar on his ribcage. And as Thien bends to graze the bruised skin under the warm, caliginous light, Pham frames the moment as one of reverential awe, an image modeled off of Caravaggio’s “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas.” It’s a beautiful shot in a film full of them. That it...
- 1/17/2024
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
No One can fully Empathize with the Soul…It is beyond Human Comprehension
Old Woman in the Film
Some films take you on a journey whether you like it or not and then there are films that slowly invite you to join in as the main character embarks on a journey. The latter is more powerful as we are choosing to do so. Thien An Pham‘s directorial feature debut Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell falls into this space. An Pham takes us on a spiritual journey by exploring rural Vietnam with themes relating to life, death, love, desire, loss, and regrets as he beautifully captures the tone, atmosphere, and environment with his observational directing style. The story is simple and at times takes a back seat but the stunning visuals and the experiences that change the main character can be very reflective to the audience.
The film kicks off...
Old Woman in the Film
Some films take you on a journey whether you like it or not and then there are films that slowly invite you to join in as the main character embarks on a journey. The latter is more powerful as we are choosing to do so. Thien An Pham‘s directorial feature debut Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell falls into this space. An Pham takes us on a spiritual journey by exploring rural Vietnam with themes relating to life, death, love, desire, loss, and regrets as he beautifully captures the tone, atmosphere, and environment with his observational directing style. The story is simple and at times takes a back seat but the stunning visuals and the experiences that change the main character can be very reflective to the audience.
The film kicks off...
- 12/19/2023
- by Prem
- Talking Films
"The existence of faith is ambiguous." Kino Lorber has revealed the official US trailer for an indie film from Vietnam titled Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, which won the Camera d'Or award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival for Best First Film. Marking the feature directorial debut of Vietnamese filmmaker Thien An Pham, this premiered in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar at Cannes & played at many prestigious festivals throughout the year. It already opened in Vietnam in August. A man returns to his hometown, where he's haunted by past memories and desires. The film is three hours long and heralded by critics as a new voice in the "slow cinema" genre. "This enthralling debut from Vietnamese filmmaker Thien An Pham is a reverie on faith, loss, and nature expressed with uncommon invention and depth." As Thien battles with the existential question of what is worth living for, the film interrogates the persistence and complexity of faith,...
- 12/7/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
At the heart of Pham Tien An’s sprawling feature debut, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, is a protagonist so unmoored from his surroundings that he looks forever on the cusp of floating away at the slightest breeze. Thien (Le Phong Vu) first appears sitting in an outdoor café in Saigon with a few friends, a local pickup game of soccer playing out to his right and the patrons behind him cheering on a televised professional match in between bites of food. Ignoring the hubbub around him, Thien asks his friends about matters of faith but looks uninterested in his own topic, zoning out as others talk about their religious beliefs.
Thien is so alienated from his environment that when a motorcycle crashes next to the café, he’s one of the few people in the vicinity who doesn’t react, remaining seated as others head over to survey the damage.
Thien is so alienated from his environment that when a motorcycle crashes next to the café, he’s one of the few people in the vicinity who doesn’t react, remaining seated as others head over to survey the damage.
- 9/7/2023
- by Jake Cole
- Slant Magazine
All of life, including death, is in the lengthy, unbroken shot that opens Thien An Pham’s bewitching debut feature “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell.” We begin on the sidelines of a local soccer match in Saigon’s city center, observing the play from a cool distance before following a shuffling mascot, dressed in a wolf suit, to the adjoining bar. There, crowds watch a 2018 World Cup fixture while a group of young men, turned from the TV, drink and discuss matters of faith, existence and ennui. Thien (Le Phong Vu) is quiet and morose, only half-invested in a conversation already beset with distractions: the sales pitch of a bubbly beer rep, the burst of a sudden summer thunderstorm, a metallic screech and grim thump as the camera again drifts serenely over to reveal the aftermath of a fatal motorcycle crash. In the ensuing rhubarb of bystander concern, Thien stays put.
- 5/25/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Kino Lorber releases the film in theaters on Friday, January 19.
An intimate three-hour epic of deliberate pacing, Vietnamese writer-director Thien An Pham’s debut feature, “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” is a spellbinding tale of the soul’s unfathomable desire for the other-worldly, that does itself border on transcendental in its filmmaking and gradual blurring of apparent truth and suggested fantasy.
The film premiered in the Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight section, where the filmmaker was previously recipient of the Illy Prize in 2019 for the short “Stay Awake, Be Ready,” in which a roadside accident at a street corner interrupted a conversation between three friends having a meal. That short seems loosely remade for the new feature’s opening scene, which expands the idea to explore a man’s attempted overcoming of a deeply unsatisfied life, taking him from...
An intimate three-hour epic of deliberate pacing, Vietnamese writer-director Thien An Pham’s debut feature, “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” is a spellbinding tale of the soul’s unfathomable desire for the other-worldly, that does itself border on transcendental in its filmmaking and gradual blurring of apparent truth and suggested fantasy.
The film premiered in the Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight section, where the filmmaker was previously recipient of the Illy Prize in 2019 for the short “Stay Awake, Be Ready,” in which a roadside accident at a street corner interrupted a conversation between three friends having a meal. That short seems loosely remade for the new feature’s opening scene, which expands the idea to explore a man’s attempted overcoming of a deeply unsatisfied life, taking him from...
- 5/24/2023
- by Josh Slater-Williams
- Indiewire
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