The Scent of Green Papaya

In-person: chef and restaurateur Alice Waters.

Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.

The Scent of Green Papaya

France, 1993

Writer-director Trần Anh Hùng won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes for his debut feature, The Scent of Green Papaya, a luminous portrait of the sensuous world as experienced by Mùi, a young servant girl to a troubled, middle-class family, in 1950s Saigon. Taking up her duties as a child, Mùi marvels at the small wonders that suffuse the open-air home — raindrops glistening on leaves, the hum of insects, the scent of papaya in the courtyard. Preparing and sharing meals becomes central to her attunement with the rhythms of nature and family life, as well as Hùng’s larger meditation on memory, desire and the grace of the everyday.—Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm

35mm, color, in Vietnamese with English subtitles, 104 min. Director/Screenwriter: Trần Anh Hùng. With: Tran Nu Yen Khe, Man San Lu, Thi Loc Truong.

Print courtesy of the Yale Film Archive.