People are voting emotionally.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Snooze-fest. And I was duped! I was looking for a Vietnamese film with English subtitles. Not many to be found. Came across this which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film representing Vietnam. It previously won the Camera d'Or at Canne. Well, turns out it was filmed on a sound stage in France. Seriously?!?! I wanted Hanoi, I got Paris. In any case, it's a well-filmed art-house movie, beautiful in its aesthetics (and thinking about it retrospect, a very close-up shot film to hide the fact it's all a studio set!) Unfortunately the movie suffers terribly in more ways than it's good. I'm not sure I've ever seen a slower moving film practically about nothing. An ordinary servant girl goes to live with a family at age 10. At age 20 she's working for someone else. That's about it. Antagonist? Conflict? Tension of any kind??? Not until about the last 10 minutes. Yawn. Sort of a Cinderella ending so perhaps a bit of a chick flick. Very well acted but yawn. Agonizingly slow. (Yawn!) High rating on IMDb but for my zero pirate dollars spent, it was (at the time) my 10th Worst Movie watched in 2013.3.4 / 10 stars--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

If your taste runs to action blockbusters, this film is not for you. The Scent of Green Papaya is the sort of film that repays patient observation, and lends itself to repeated viewings. I'm not an "intellectual"--I will admit I had to take a couple of runs at this film before I understood what I was seeing. The first time, I turned it off 20 min. into it, saying, "Nothing's happening here!" That's true, if you're used to Western films that are driven by action and dialog. Like many Asian films, TSOGP is instead driven by inter-action between characters and observation. The camera functions as an "eye" to show us life from the character's point of view. After seeing the entire film, I became aware that it had become a part of my mental furnishings; I realised I was spending quite a lot of time thinking about it in the following days. I'm told by those who live with me that the highest compliment I can give a film are the words, "I need to see it again." And I do--I need to buy a copy and see it several more times.Ten year old Miu is sent from her home village to Saigon to work as a servant in a cloth merchant's household. She is fascinated by their beautiful home and its furnishings, the papaya tree in the courtyard, and how very different their lifestyle is to what she has known. The youngest son of the family sees her arrival as a golden opportunity--at last someone is lower on the family totem-pole than himself, and he tries to bully Miu in various ways. However, his attempts fall flat as he never gets much of a reaction; in her innocence, Miu accepts events as they come, never trying to assign blame or "tell" on him. If a jar gets broken, she accepts it is her fault; if a pail of dirty water gets upended or "someone" pees all over a clean floor, she cleans it up without a word. Her employer's wife soon sees her as a surrogate daughter, someone to fill the void of her own daughter's death and her own loveless marriage to a spendthrift husband who abandons the family for weeks at a time and comes home empty handed.Ten years later, Miu is sent to work for a family friend, a young man she has long admired. His relationship with a spoiled girl of his own class flickers out as he becomes more aware of Miu's quiet presence in his life. All of the "action" of the film is crammed into the last 30 min, as we see the results of his growing awareness and its transforming effect. The film is stunning to look at, as usual in much of Asian cinema. If I had one complaint, it was the soundtrack; not the traditional Vietnamese music played by father and son at the beginning of the story, but the tortuous "contemporary" Western music in the second half, including a dreadful rendition of Debussy's Claire de Lune--as if an alley cat were trying to play the violin on its own cat-guts. The caterwauling added nothing to the film, and only served as an irritating distraction. This is what caused me to lower my rating of this otherwise fine film.

I am a big fan of movies with the story line SIMILAR to this one, my fave are Em be Ha Noi (The little girl of Hanoi), Doi Cat (Sandy Lives), Bao gio cho den thang muoi (When the tenth month comes)... Check them out if you really want to see a REAL Vietnamese movie. Being a 100% Vietnamese (born & raised in Vietnam), I have to say that this movie has so many li'l details that do not represent Vietnam at all. If you've ever lived in VN, you probably know what I mean. Here's the most obvious one: even if you don't speak VNese, you probably notice the sudden quiet of the main character at the beginning of the 2nd part. She was a very cute girl during the 1st part, and all in sudden, the music jumped in, and replace all her talking as if she became mute or something. I started to feel uncomfortable from that point on. Not until the scene when she learns how to read that I realized why. Simply, she can't speak VNese. You can tell that even though she tried her very very best, her accent was so obvious. She was an opposite of the 10 yo girl who fits so well into the character, even the way she walks. Should I also mention the ending is kind of a rush? The whole story moves in a snail speed and I couldn't wait until it ended so that I can go back to my reading. And then, just like that, it ended, unexpected. Although it is a happy ending, it's nothing like other REAL VNese movies which always bring some sort of happiness, warmth, sense of hope afterward.I do admit that the movie is beautifully. I actually love all the washing shot because I think it's one of the rare things in this movie that looks and feels like VN. For those who wonder why there were so much washing, well, it simply a way to say that the girl is pure. But other than that, I kept being distracted and looking at the clock half way through the movie. What should I say? I don't think I would recommend this movie or maybe you should only watch the 1st part...

I guess when people say this is beautifully filmed they are talking about the close ups of frogs and the cooking of meals. It certainly doesn't refer to the set which seems to be composed of about 3 rooms with no outside shots at all. Also all of it is filmed too close up.I got sick of the little boy who keeps farting at Miu or pouring hot wax over ants...also do Vietnamese spend all their time sitting on their haunches? Kind of gross looking at least the way this movie depicts it--one close up of it would have been plenty not a dozen or more.Then finally comes part two... a chick flick for Vietnamese girls with the perfect handsome rich man who spends all day playing the piano (He is cultured). The pretty maid steals him like the forbidden green mango fruit. Deep.Except for a few nice close ups this film is a dud. It is sort of a soap opera with out dialog. It is cloyed. How is it beautiful?? The set looks completely fake.No don't make the mistake I did and rent it because someone recommended it. I was expecting beautiful shots of the coastal mountains of Vietnam or something when I heard it was a visual gem.I wanted to like this movie. I like foreign movies even prefer them. But this movie is dumb and dull. It will leave you irritated that something like this won a bunch of prizes.