From a distance, we observe a group of people talking and drinking on what appears to be a relatively pleasant evening in one of Vietnam’s central urban hubs. Off-screen, a crash is heard, followed by a cacophony of screens, and the characters begin to retreat out of frame. The camera follows them, but it’s slightly delayed, so we don’t see what has happened until a few moments later, where the bodies of two people lie in the middle of the street, strewn across the asphalt in what is very clearly a tragedy. These are the images that occur right at the start of Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Vietnamese: Bên trong vỏ kén vàng), the exceptional directorial debut of Phạm Thiên Ân, who has been circling the industry for a few years through his short-subject projects, but has now decided to attempt a feature-length narrative, which takes the form of this three-hour existential epic that plumbs the emotional depths of the human condition in a creative and quite profound manner. The film follows the journey of a young man named Thiện, who is related to one of the deceased cyclists and is tasked with taking her body back to their small rural village to be appropriately buried. He is accompanied by her young son, who has yet to comprehend the concept of death. Along the way, our protagonist undergoes a series of encounters and experiences that border on the supernatural, all of which reflect his existential quandaries, leading to a fascinating examination of his position in a world he has barely been able to understand himself. The extent to which Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is autobiographical is not clear, and outside of the protagonist having the same name and being of roughly a similar age to the director, there isn’t much context – but this exact kind of ambiguity is precisely what drives this film and makes it such a wonderfully complex and intriguing drama, and announces Ân as one of the most essential young voices in contemporary Vietnamese cinema, which is steadily rising on the global stage and becoming a true force of nature in its way.

Vietnam has not been widely explored cinematically from within on quite the level that it ought to have been, which is an unfortunate byproduct of the fact that the industry has largely ignored the efforts to bring it to a worldwide audience. There are certainly some excellent talents emerging from the nation on both sides of the camera, but it often feels like an afterthought in comparison to some of its neighbouring countries. This seemed to be the director’s intention when crafting Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, which in many ways is aiming to be a thorough and detailed examination of Vietnamese culture, geography and history through the lens of a young man’s journey from the big city back to the small village in which he spent his formative years. The concept of homecoming is a resonant theme for Ân, who crafts an exceptionally complex story around the protagonist’s journey back home, allowing us access to his conversations with various people, each one revealing some new context that enriches his understanding of the world that surrounds him, as well as contributing to our growing fascination with these disparate subjects that all work together to create something extremely captivating. The director set out to tell the story of his country, which takes various forms in his mind – it is the homeland of his ancestors and the place where his entire history is rooted, as well as the place in which he spent his formative years, which will always retain a special place in our memories. He interweaves these very personal concepts with his fascination with the culture and history of Vietnam – Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell often feels like it is offering a historical overview of the past, coupled with the director’s observations about his origins, which make for an enthralling and layered film that is filled to the brim with fascinating historical context that feels remarkably refreshing in comparison to what a lot of western media has been willing to show about Vietnam and its rich, evocative and complex culture.

However, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is not restricted to being a historical and cultural analysis of Vietnam – while this would be fascinating in its own right, it would ultimately not lead to any particularly interesting or complex observations. Instead, the director infuses what is very clearly a series of reflections on his culture with a story of self-discovery, which is really where the film starts to take shape and becomes something quite special. The character of Thiện (played magnificently by newcomer Lê Phong Vũ, who is an absolute revelation in the film) is undergoing something of an existential crisis – he is trying his best to survive in the modern metropolis of Saigon, in which he is attempting to make a living, but yet he is constantly drawn back to the natural world, such as in the recurring motif of the small bird that accompanies him on the journey (the symbolism present throughout the film is staggering), which leads to a lot of inner conflict as he attempts to navigate his own identity. This becomes even more complex through the encounters he has with various people along the way – whether individuals who he knows personally and act as spectres of the past, such as an old girlfriend or someone who knew his family when he was growing up, or strangers that welcome him into their homes and discuss their personal history with him, leading to the pondering of his origins and how they relate to the culture he tries to honour after avoiding it for so long. This is a very personal story for the director, and while it may not be directly autobiographical in the traditional sense, we can easily see that he uses this story as a way to filter his thoughts and ideas about his culture, showing a young man on a voyage of self-discovery, unearthing the many secrets that linger beneath the surface of his culture, showcasing the journey he takes to realize that the person he is, whether he believes it or not, is defined by both his actions and the foundation set by generations of people that came before him.

It is impossible to make any film that can be considered the definitive text on any subject, since there will always be elisions, even for the most thorough and complex of projects – yet, a film like Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell feels like it could be covertly encompassing a lot more than we initially imagine, which it does through a more abstract style of filmmaking. There are long stretches of silence, as well as lengthy conversations, some of which do not initially make much sense in context, but gradually interweave with the overall atmosphere that the director evokes. The film is exceptionally well-made, and it genuinely feels like we are witnessing the pioneering steps of not only a tremendous storyteller but a director whose eye for detail and ability to explore certain themes through just the way they are presented on screen, which is not something we regularly find in such intimate, personal debut films. Visually, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is extraordinary – the director evokes a dreamlike atmosphere through how he portrays Vietnam, and whether showing the striking urbanity of Saigon, or the beautiful, untouched nature of the countryside, the country has rarely looked more gorgeous and mystifying than it does in this film. This is all very important, since not is it only functionally integral to the plot (which consists of long stretches of static shots), but it evokes several different emotions, ranging from enchantment to curiosity, and sometimes even slight discomfort, all of which are woven into the narrative, developed into something complex and powerful and ultimately circling back to the emotional content that drives this film. Ân has a terrific eye for detail, and how he explores the world through mere images is already a distinct trait that we can only hope he retains as he becomes a more confident and intriguing filmmaker in the coming years, with this being the perfect collision of both style and substance that feels increasingly rare.

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is a film consisting of many winding roads, both literally and metaphorically – we follow the journey of a young man as he returns to his village, and in the process, he is plunged into a state of meditation, where he is forced to reflect on the past and what it means for both him as an individual, and for the entire country. There are numerous layers of which this film is comprised, and we learn very early on in the story that we are not supposed to understand everything, and that the entire purpose of the story is to be an ethereal meditation on the fickle boundary between life and death, as well as a quiet exploration of the past, and how it relates to our identity as individuals and the entire national consciousness. These are all the elements that make up the film’s foundation, and we find that it is more than willing to go off in several different directions, depending on the specific idea it wishes to investigate, which usually tends to take the form of the slightly more complex investigations into the human condition. Ân is a tremendous talent – his visual compositions are some of the best of the decade so far, and his approach to storytelling, particularly his tendency to amplify the ambiguities to become something richer and more profound despite the vague nature of the story and what it intends to accomplish. Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is a magnificent debut, a solidly profound existential drama that tells the story of an entire country and its people, filtering it through an intensely personal, complex narrative about existence, and how it is something that we will never understand entirely, but rather grow more comfortable in realizing we can’t ever truly comprehend, which this film argues is the only true liberation that we can find as we navigate life’s various peculiar labyrinths.