SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Another beautiful film. Slow metamorphosis of a house servant girl in prewar Vietnam. Wonderful cinematography and effective characterisation. The detailing of the set takes the cake. A delightful experience for those who like to savour a movie like classic tea or wine. Rich on the senses and soothing on the mind. Mindfulness!

A little girl, Mui (Man San Lu), goes to a house as a new servant. The mother still mourns the death of her daughter, who would have been Mui's age. In her mind, she treats Mui as her daughter. Ten years later Mui (now a young woman, played by Tran Nu Yên-Khê) is sent to another family, a young pianist and his fiancé.The plot and characters aside, this film must be praised for its beautiful colors, especially the vibrant green (making the title most appropriate). Although it failed to win best foreign film at the Oscars, attention should be played to cinematographer Benoît Delhomme. He has gone on to make great films like "1408", "Boy in the Striped Pajamas" and "Lawless". Where is his nomination? On a totally unrelated note, I also liked the boy's obsession with inappropriate urination. Humorous, to say the least.

If your taste runs to action blockbusters, this film is not for you. The Scent of Green Papaya is the sort of film that repays patient observation, and lends itself to repeated viewings. I'm not an "intellectual"--I will admit I had to take a couple of runs at this film before I understood what I was seeing. The first time, I turned it off 20 min. into it, saying, "Nothing's happening here!" That's true, if you're used to Western films that are driven by action and dialog. Like many Asian films, TSOGP is instead driven by inter-action between characters and observation. The camera functions as an "eye" to show us life from the character's point of view. After seeing the entire film, I became aware that it had become a part of my mental furnishings; I realised I was spending quite a lot of time thinking about it in the following days. I'm told by those who live with me that the highest compliment I can give a film are the words, "I need to see it again." And I do--I need to buy a copy and see it several more times.Ten year old Miu is sent from her home village to Saigon to work as a servant in a cloth merchant's household. She is fascinated by their beautiful home and its furnishings, the papaya tree in the courtyard, and how very different their lifestyle is to what she has known. The youngest son of the family sees her arrival as a golden opportunity--at last someone is lower on the family totem-pole than himself, and he tries to bully Miu in various ways. However, his attempts fall flat as he never gets much of a reaction; in her innocence, Miu accepts events as they come, never trying to assign blame or "tell" on him. If a jar gets broken, she accepts it is her fault; if a pail of dirty water gets upended or "someone" pees all over a clean floor, she cleans it up without a word. Her employer's wife soon sees her as a surrogate daughter, someone to fill the void of her own daughter's death and her own loveless marriage to a spendthrift husband who abandons the family for weeks at a time and comes home empty handed.Ten years later, Miu is sent to work for a family friend, a young man she has long admired. His relationship with a spoiled girl of his own class flickers out as he becomes more aware of Miu's quiet presence in his life. All of the "action" of the film is crammed into the last 30 min, as we see the results of his growing awareness and its transforming effect. The film is stunning to look at, as usual in much of Asian cinema. If I had one complaint, it was the soundtrack; not the traditional Vietnamese music played by father and son at the beginning of the story, but the tortuous "contemporary" Western music in the second half, including a dreadful rendition of Debussy's Claire de Lune--as if an alley cat were trying to play the violin on its own cat-guts. The caterwauling added nothing to the film, and only served as an irritating distraction. This is what caused me to lower my rating of this otherwise fine film.

The storyline of this movie is pretty basic – its follows the coming of age of a girl, who serves as a househelp. What makes the movie really attractive is the whats in the background- the audio and the visuals. Its feels like walking through a Vietnamese museum. I loved the slow languid mellow tones. The roundness of the ceramic pottery, blackness of long strands of hair, chirping of crickets, warmth of wood, ornate carvings, slowness of movement – it all melds in really well. It creates the effect of being in some scented magical tropical garden where there is an occasional cool breeze. It's a very sensuous movie – without having to resort to sexuality for displaying sensuousness.