Review: Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023)

Vietnamese art film is Slow Cinema to a fault

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023)
Written and directed by Phạm Thiên Ân

In this elegant but wandering feature, a man takes responsibility for the post-mortem details for his sister-in-law, who has been killed in a traffic accident. This sends him on what reviewers and descriptions of the film describe as a spiritual quest, and if that explains the movie, I’ll accept it.

When Thiên’s (Lê Phong Vũ) sister-in-law dies in a collision with another motorbike, Thiên doesn’t know how to contact his brother, her husband, or even where he lives, so Thiên handles the details of the funeral and burial. These are the least of his worries, though, since his sister-in-law’s passenger, seven-year-old Dao (Nguyễn Thịnh), is unhurt but doesn’t seem to understand death.

The boy and the man go on a motorbike road trip to a convent, where Thiên’s former girlfriend Thao (Nguyễn Thị Trúc Quỳnh) teaches, having become a nun. There he leaves Dao for safekeeping while he attempts to find his brother, the boy’s father. This scene and many others take place in a deeply Roman Catholic milieu, with symbols of the faith decorating random roadside dwellings. The film’s constant referrals to Catholicism are probably meant to provide an environment for Thiên’s putative spiritual quest — if that is what he’s doing — but they create an impression that Catholicism in Vietnam is almost ubiquitous (Wikipedia says only 7.4% of the populace embrace the faith).

With the boy in the school’s care, Thiên goes in search of his estranged brother, who may live in the U.S., or in a mountain hamlet. The quest and the film both bog down at this point — quite literally in the case of the road trip, as monsoon rains turn the rural highways to mud. It’s often picturesque, but more often the camera is in close-up during extended scenes. At one point, Thiên walks bareheaded up a mountain road in the dark during an intense downpour. Why has he left the shelter of the roadside mechanic’s shop, where he had fallen asleep while his bike was being fixed, and chosen to walk up the road in the pouring rain? We don’t know, and we never find out, so the four-minute close-up of his anguished face as he walks seems wasted.

There are also many slo - o - ow pans that follow him through a shot. These are elegantly framed but by the end of the film I was tired of them. The skill of the director, and of cinematographer Đinh Duy Hưng, are on display, but to what end?

I found myself comparing this film to my favorite film of 2023, “Trenque Lauquen.” Both films are long (three hours for “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” four for the Argentine film) and use elements of “slow cinema;” both use nontraditional narrative structure and dreamy imagery. But I found this film much less compelling. There’s simply not enough plot, or even simple episodes, to justify the three-hour length.