The story’s set in motion by the theft of a pedal cab essential to the economic survival of an 18-year-old Vietnamese. But forget Bicycle Thieves, and forget, too, writer/director Trân Anh Hùng’s debut feature, The Scent of Green Papaya. When the ‘cyclo’ (Le Van Loc) tells his boss that his vehicle’s been stolen by professional rivals, he finds himself at the mercy of the Poet (Tony Leung), a taciturn gangster who diverts the boy from self-improvement (as advised by his late father) and into a life of crime. What the boy doesn’t know, however, is that the Poet has also lured his sister (Trân Nu Yên Khê) into prostitution: in the desperate, hustling world of Ho Chi Minh City, it seems, innocence is unprotected. With its dazzling camerawork, feverish energy and dark, visceral power, this admirably unsentimental film paints a compelling portrait of moral derailment and salvation in a city in social and spiritual turmoil. The plot’s packed with absent, uncaring or malign father figures; the tone is alternately tender or brutally violent; and the use of water and fire as symbols of purification and destruction gives rise to vivid dreamlike imagery. It’ll have you reeling.

Author: GA