FREE ON YOUTUBE The Scent Of Green Papaya

FREE ON YOUTUBE  Such a sweet and quiet movie! "The Scent of Green Papaya" is set in Vietnam between the 40s and 60s. More precise between the late 40s and the early 60s. We look at time through the eyes of a poor young woman. She works as a servant in the household of a merchant family. She observes everything around her very closely. Every last detail! Slowly she matures and develops into a very beautiful woman. She is of simple kindness, which in turn impresses her cynical employers (who are always in a hurry). Her name is Mui and she is an orphan. As a child she starts with the Kaufmanns family, learns fast and well. She does her work inconspicuously. Sometimes she almost looks like a ghost. Looking at the world through her eyes means seeing beauty everywhere. A drop of water that pearls on a leaf. The sunlight that falls through the leaves. Or the scent of green papaya. We learn how the household in which she works works from Mui's perspective. We notice with how much love Mother Mui encounters. She is like a daughter. Mui grows up and the family's fortune dwindles. Then the father dies and everything gets disordered. Mui is supposed to work as the servant of a friend of the family. She has known him all her life. Today he plays the piano and speaks French. Mui loves him. We only recognize this through extremely indirect clues. Details that are hardly visible to humans... The Scent of Green Papaya seems more like a poem than a film. However, one of great visual beauty! If you take a closer look, you will notice that the whole story takes place in one set. Inside. This isn't unusual for Asian movies. Maybe the Vietnam of the early 90s, the time the movie was made, doesn't look colonialistic enough? Tran Anh Hung achieves the highest visual perfection. The film doesn't look like life. It looks like an ideal of life. Like Mui's world. This world gets along almost without a plot. All the time we ask ourselves: When will the pianist finally see the beautiful woman who lives under his roof? When will he finally realize that the love he has sought everywhere is right in front of him? But this film is not guided by the plot. He is guided by the growth of the young woman. When you have seen The Scent Of Green Papaya - like me - for the second time, you will enjoy it all the more.