The Taste of Green Papaya is such a movie, with exotic flavors, old-time families, and the collision of old and new cultures.
The movie depicts the story of a little girl, Mei's growth, the unchanging beginnings along the way, and a simple love story.
The family is poor, came to a strange family as a maid, less milk to support the family, the young master, but many times take all the family money to go out, one of them, the daughter of the Peach is sick, no money for medical treatment, left the world.
Mei and Peach is about the same age, clean face with a pair of black round eyes, flooded with a layer of water, as if it would talk, so the young grandmother is more loving her, she has a small bamboo house of their own weaving, which raised a pair of crickets, but also like frogs, robins and these small animals.
At the beginning of the movie, a little girl dressed like an old lady walks into a small harbor with a cat on her back. She sees a woman sleeping on the ground with her thighs exposed on a white veil, and a man sleeping on a chaise longue with a hat over his head and a stiff body.
Her ignorant and curious eyes, full of desire to explore everything strange around her, where she lives, there is a cucumber tree outside the window, fruitful, full of the flavor of summer, that is the taste of green papaya, is the taste of nature and freshness, but also the memory of the distant youth.
The hero, Hao Min, is a musician who often comes to the house as a guest, and when she was a young girl, Mei had a crush on him, and when she became an adult, Mei became a beautiful woman, and her loving young mother sent her to Hao Min's young master's house to work as a maid, and Hao Min's young master had a passionate fiancée, who was dressed in a fashionable manner and pretty, like the red rose in Eileen Chang's novels;
Mei, on the other hand, is like a white jasmine, long, straight, and black, which is still fragrant even after the rain.
She brings out the ancient oriental beauty, intellectual, natural, meek, tolerant, and of course outwardly beautiful, and the hero can't help but be attracted to it, abandoning the red rose and falling in love with the white jasmine.
I like the way they got along later, it was really a quiet, leisurely years, warm sunshine, I teach you to read; quiet indoors, I listen to you play the piano.
May slowly grow, from the first for the survival of the busy little girl, to the beginning of the love of the big girl, and finally the love of the child two harvest.
The journey was not easy, when she was young, she was caught by the young master's childish tricks, and even broke an expensive vase; when she grew up, her favorite young master, Hao Min, had a fiancée who was as passionate as a fire, and she watched them play and fight and was just an outsider herself.
Of course, fate has not treated her poorly, there is the young nurse who loves her like a daughter; there is the young master who gives up his fiancée and falls in love with her.
Of course, I like her attitude towards life more, although life is not good, we still need to have a pair of eyes to find the beauty of a fun heart, the two crickets in the cage, the papaya tree outside the window, the frog's chirping, can always cause people to be inexplicably surprised, inexplicably touched.
The director, Chen Hero, has a delicate and full-bodied approach to filmmaking, and under his lens we see a different Vietnam, with tenderness and cruelty, and full of the clash of old and new cultures.
The film won the Camera d'Or at the 46th Cannes International Film Festival, the 19th César Award for Best Debut Film, and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 66th Academy Awards.
The heroine of the movie is Chen Hero's wife, Chen Yanxi, who has been the heroine of almost all his movies, with her clean eyes and long black hair, and has become an enduring character in people's memories.
Near the time, near where I live there are plants blooming, flowers small and warm yellow, there are butterflies fluttering, light nectar, sucking the sweet flavor, the lake blue fluorescence on the wings, in the sun, the beauty of the hair.
Another idle crane, landed under the bridge, white like a cloud in the sky, elegant and comfortable stretching body, not too clear water reflection of its figure, really a rare sight.
Life probably needs a pair of eyes to discover the beauty, so as not to be oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar to smooth out the edges, become flat and numb, and will pay attention to the beauty of the side of the visible everywhere.