Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Phạm Thiên Ân, 2023) (Patreon)

It's a familiar gambit. A first-time filmmaker, uncertain that the funding vicissitudes of venture capital will ever allow him another at-bat, throws every stray idea into the debut, some sticking and others not. However, with Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, Vietnamese director Phạm Thiên Ân takes this approach to the extreme. Over a frequently gorgeous, often engrossing, but ultimately grinding three-hour run time, Pham offers a virtual compendium of Asian arthouse maneuvers, nominally yoked together with one character's apparent existential crisis and slip into unreality. It's a meandering film about, well, a man meandering.

The first hour, however, is golden. Thien (Le Phong Vu) is on the town with his friends, getting spa treatments and throwing back beers. In the middle of his massage (one that hints at the promise of a "happy ending") Thien is informed to check his messages, and he learns that his sister-in-law Theresa has died in a motorcycle crash. This forces him to leave Ho Chi Minh City, return to the countryside, and manage the funeral with his old friend Trung (Vu Ngoc Manh). He must also take over guardianship of his nephew Dao (Nguyen Thinh), now essentially an orphan. I say "essentially" because, many years ago, Dao's father, Thien's older brother, abandoned the family and disappeared, presumably into a new life.

In setting the stage for what seems to be the film's primary conflict, Pham displays remarkable control over montage and film space. One early cut moves Thien and his buddies from a barroom table to a sauna, and their positions match so closely that their appearance in the second location reads like magic. At other points, Pham simply employs good, solid Eisensteinian editing, moving from close-ups to long shots, verticals to horizontals, etc. And in one particularly affecting sequence, we observe Theresa's funeral procession walk down the road for a lengthy shot, and then cut to a close-up of Thien's foot pressing a shovel into the ground. But the hole he's digging is for an entirely different death.

At the end of the first hour and through much of the second, we observe the growing bond between Thien and Dao, and to his great credit, Pham avoids the usual "moppet vs. curmudgeon" cliches. Thien is immediately protective of Dao, and struggles to help Dao accept and understand his new reality. And in an interesting digression, Thien meets with an old man who serves the community by preparing bodies for burial. He brings Thien into his hovel and tells him stories about his experiences in the Vietnam War. As has become de rigeur in contemporary slow cinema, we can tell that this non-actor is a real man describing his own memories.

It's at this point that Phan loses the plot, such as it is. An unexpected meeting with an old flame, Thao (Nguyen Thi Truc Quynh), offers implications of Thien's past, but holds them just out of reach. Thien left for the city long ago, seemingly leaving Thao behind. She became a nun. One theme hovering in the background of Yellow Cocoon Shell is modern Vietnam's strong commitment to Catholicism, something the French left behind that the populace has made their own. If Pham wants us to diagnose Thien's malaise, it may have something to do with his lack of religious faith. "I want to believe," he says early in the film, "but I just can't."

Thao works at a Catholic elementary school, and Thien rather unceremoniously deposits Dao into their care. Shortly after Thien's meeting with Thao, the film enters a sudden flashback sequence of the lovers in better days. And from this point on, Thien plans to leave the village on his motorcycle and try to find his asshole brother. This sojourn comprises the final hour of Yellow Cocoon Shell. And for a moment, we think he may have actually located the guy.

But most of the final half-hour of Pham's film is an extended fantasy or dream sequence, cut in with no indication that that's what it is. By this point, Yellow Cocoon Shell has laid its cards on the table with respect to its influences. The unstable diegesis of Weerasethakul, the wry Constructivism of Tsai, the winding travel shots of Bi Gan, and the incorporation of para-documentary material (everyone under the sun) all suggest that Pham has made a long and lumbering tribute to his heroes. Inasmuch as we can discern a unique artistic point of view, it rests with Thien's ennui, his sense of homelessness and soul-sickness. In an extended final shot, we see Thien strip down and lie face-up in the river, the current washing over him. In more ways than one, it feels like a hopeless gesture, the sign of simply giving up.