The film starts with a discussion between friends about spirituality and leaving their current life to live in the mountains. “You’ve yet to understand it,” said a friend to another who’s skeptical of this whole gimmick. The first 30 minutes of the film peek into a life in urban Vietnam that seems rather hollow and anxious. The film only really begins when Thien, our protagonist, goes for a spiritual journey in his home village nearer to nature. From this point on, we ask ourselves constantly whether we’ve understood what spirituality means to us.
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is a contemplative piece about faith and death. Sometimes it dwells on the past, seeking to understand what we were and who we are. It asks the question: what’s our relation to the soul? What does death have something to do with faith? The medium uses long static shots to invite us into this contemplative state. These shots are characterized by either sceneries of nature and rural Vietnam, or Christian symbols depicted through statues and imagery. It’s in no way a coincidence that the film focuses on a place nearer to nature, and far from the city, which gave our protagonist anxiety in the first place. Those abundant religious symbols were never once shown in the prologue, when Thien lived in the city surrounded by materialistic objects.
The film started out pretty promising. As it went on, though, it was getting hard to fight the drowsiness until somewhere in the later half. There were themes, but sometimes it was hard to connect with what I actually experienced within these long shots. Well, one could argue the film is meant for a meditation, not to be understood, so maybe it’s just not for me. Though, for a debut feature, the film was indeed interesting in its own way, so I’m looking forward to the director’s next work.
March Around the World 2025 (15/30)