The film recounts a simple and ordinary story that takes place in Saigon, Vietnam in 1951, which is director Tran Hero's next masterpiece after The Pedicab Driver. A young girl who is busy with the fragrance of green papaya reaps her love when the melon is ripe. The dazzling green color and the sobbing sound of the piano are the two emotions that run through the film, as well as the sound of the grandmother's wooden fish, which opens up the old days of Vietnam to us in a soothing and long-lasting rhythm from the beginning to the end of the film.
The success of The Taste of Green Papaya lies in the beautiful image of Vietnamese women. Although the movie was shot in France, the location is quite beautiful, very much like Southeast Asia's lush grass and trees, "the shade of the garden". Because of the hot and humid climate in Vietnam, most of the characters in the movie are barefoot, wearing single cloth clothes, turning on electric fans every day, and hanging mosquito nets to prevent mosquitoes. This almost reductive portrayal brings an excellent viewing experience to the audience. Looking at the film those green shots, as if already smelled the fresh scent of tropical plants, but also felt the tropical kind of hot and humid, to see the Southeast Asian girls pupils of the innocent and pure.
More than anything else, the flavor of the film is the sound of the movie and the soundtrack. The characters in this movie seldom speak and there is very little dialog, so there is a lot of soundtracks and sounds of nature and man-made sounds. The sounds of nature include the chirping of frogs, the sound of water, the rustling of leaves in the wind, and the chirping of crickets....... These sounds of nature create a natural beauty for the movie and a sense of freshness and comfort in nature. In addition to the sounds, the natural elements also include the ubiquitous images of insects (the crickets that Mei catches and keeps, the ants that the second young master crushes to death) and the lizards that the third young master catches when he is teasing Mei, etc. The presence of animals adds a new dimension to the movie. The presence of animals adds a natural flavor and lively childishness to the film, and also shows the innocence and beauty of the main character Mei's life.
There are not too many artificial sounds in the movie, including the sound of stir-frying, the sound of knocking on the wooden fish, the sound of various musical instruments (the classical music and the piano played by Hao Ren in the master's house), and the sound of the electric fan, etc. The more these sounds appear, the more they become a part of the movie, and the more they become a part of the movie. The more these sounds appeared, the more I felt the silence and loneliness in this family. Because no one is talking, everything is quiet. It's like the old poem, "The sound sets off the silence". The soundtrack is the most peculiar part of the film, and the director utilizes a lot of sound and picture separation, which not only enhances the connotation and thickness of the film and television images, but also gives the audience room for self-reflection.
The film is entitled "The Taste of Green Papaya", that spread in the garden of the green papaya fragrance and the intoxicating green prints of May's delicate face is exceptionally beautiful, busy ants, frogs on the moss, lizards on the green lotus, but also in the busy life of the hooks May's childishness, only the day of the naughty to the May's tediousness to add a little tension, May shows her age, the child's mind, the child's heart, only the day of the naughty to the May's tediousness. Tension, May shows a maturity and inescapable stance rarely seen at her age, and life unfolds flatly in such simplicity.? Green papaya appears three times in the whole movie. Once the old maid went to pick the green papaya and was seen by Mei, she seemed to be curious about the milky liquid when the papaya was cut off, and then went to observe it, this time the green papaya is like Mei, life is not that simple, the pessimism embedded therein is unavoidable.
The second time is the master rolled the money to run, the maid had to take the green papaya cooking, Amei first cut open the green papaya, with fingers to touch those white, fat, crystalline sub, in this piece of the director deliberately used a close-up, the light is also given a special enough, the plum is also in such an experience in more precocious, affluent families have the same it is inevitable contradictions, the young grandmother's affectionate expectation of the plum premature read the The young grandma's affectionate expectations make Mei understand the fragility of emotions and the sadness of the adult world too early. The empty rice bowl makes the heaviness of life so direct that people have to face it; is the sound of the wooden fish of the grandma a remembrance of her deceased lover or a remembrance of her own youthful years that have passed away too early? Or is it both?
The third appearance of green papaya is in the house of young master Hao Ren, Mei is cooking with green papaya, when she has already harvested a happy family, so the taste of green papaya seems to become a kind of sweetness. The fullness of that life form was impressive. May also matured in such a way, fate arranged in such a time schedule for her and Hao Ren met, no one knows what exactly touched the sensitive heart of the young girl May, perhaps it is Hao Ren's mature man overflowing clean and peaceful. Mei in such days precipitation belongs to her feelings, a not harvest time of emotion, perhaps for her that is just a dream, like that through the day diffused in the surrounding green papaya flavor, the flesh of the melon kind of crystal kick is just a gorgeous and fragile dream. When all the people in the time are old, Mei to the age of twenty, the change of the years makes people have a kind of blank sadness to the reality, only Mei is still in the orbit of her that is set to walk, but the reality is to make everything change, even Mei's simple life is also inevitably disturbed, the family is no longer in need of her, she took the young grandmother's infinite thoughts and hopes for Peach and left the family, with which she has lived for ten years, her life is also because of this. She leaves the family she has been living with for ten years with the endless thoughts and hopes of the young grandmother for Momo, and her life turns over a new leaf because of this change. The fully matured Mei begins to walk into the life of the still young Hirohito, so silently that she doesn't even notice the change. When the tender lips are coated with a tantalizingly bright color, Hao Ren wakes up as if from a dream, and every detail of his life has been drenched with Mei's traces. When all the fingers return to show in the same direction, any factor in life also seems so logical, and when the green papaya is once again cut open, the intense crystal makes everything seem so blissful.
The Taste of Green Papaya is not so much an expression of childhood memories or a celebration of women as it is an expression of women's lives in a patriarchal society. Several women appear in the movie, one is Mei, the second is an old maid, the third is a madam, the fourth is an old lady, and the fifth is Ho-in's fiancée. These people seem to be different types. For Mei, her future is either as an old maid or as a "madam". How will the madam change? Madam will become "Old Lady". When the old lady passed away, she moved upstairs and, like the old lady, she knelt in front of the Buddha statue every day to pray for blessings. In ten years, she has become too old. This is not the look of a rich wife. But in the end, the lady has become an "old lady", which is more like a woman's destiny, more like a microcosm of women in Vietnamese society. She spends the first half of her life working for her husband and children, and the second half of her life praying for blessings. This pattern of life restricts women's freedom. The old madam has a lover who loves her, but she chooses to shut up and pray at home. The madam is selfless about her family, but the money is always swept away and run away by her husband. Even so, the madam cannot complain, but has to accept the criticism of the old lady, who says, "It's you who don't know how to love your husband, and he's the one who runs away with someone else." In this social system shown in the movie, men are not to blame for making mistakes. We can see this in many ways. The third young master always teases Mei, but Mei never pays any attention to him and just does what she should do; the second young master always has trouble with ants, and seems to me to be a gloomy and unintelligible person who doesn't even go to the school, but he is not blamed for anything; the old master just plays musical instruments at home and sings about the moon and the wind and cares nothing about the family's affairs, and he runs away from home from time to time and absconds with the money, but does anyone blame him? But who blames him? But did anyone blame him? No. Some people even excused him and found a "scapegoat" for him. What about Mei, who left the family? Hao Ren is a man with a fiancée. He had sex with Mei even though he knew that there was a marriage contract, and he even asked Mei to send a letter to his fiancée, which led to Mei being beaten up, but did anyone say that he had gone too far in doing so? The rejected fiancée also just smashed things and slapped May, but didn't go to Ho-In to argue about it either. Regardless of which family one looks at, males, especially adult males, are a group that is spoiled by society as a whole. They naturally have people to cover for them when they make mistakes, and their chances of being criticized and blamed are far lower than those of women, but this is only because they are male. This is a very obvious mindset formed under a male-dominated society.
But there's no denying that although the movie is from a male point of view, May's innocence and cuteness still brings us a beautiful experience. May's watery eyes and delicate dexterity are very much in line with the image of a little girl as a blank slate.