The Scent of Green Papaya

An Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, The Scent of Green Papaya recreates antebellum Vietnam first through the wide eyes of childhood, and later through the deep blush of first love. In 1951 Saigon, 10-year-old Mui (Lu Man San) enters the household of an affluent but troubled Vietnamese family as a servant. Despite her servile role, Mui discovers beauty and epiphany in the lush physical details that envelope her, while earning the fragile affection of the household's grieving matriarch. Ten years later, Mui (Tran Nu Yen-Khe) finds that her relationship with a handsome pianist she has admired since childhood is growing both in depth and complexity. Though steeped in writer-director Tran Anh Hung's southeast Asian heritage, The Scent of Green Papaya was realized entirely within a Parisian soundstage. The film's heady, scrupulously detailed and wholly authentic depiction of a society in decline, a family in quiet turmoil, and lovers on the threshold of romance earned the Camera D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.