Indochine [DVD]

I would say that this film is a grand mixture of exotic and natural beauty and complexity. The complexity is multifaceted; the complexity of character development, the complexity of an unfolding plot, and the complexity of changing world politics.Lets start with beauty. The cinematography and art direction in the film is superb, Vietnam is shown to be an amazingly magical land of changing landscapes and architecture. The cast of the film was superb. Catherine Deneuve, plays wealthy rubber plantation owner Eliane Deveries. Ms. Deneuve is a legendary beauty but in this film we see her playing the role of a woman approaching 40 and we see a mature, sophisticated, strong beauty. The front cover of the DVD should give you a clue as you see Ms. Deneuve marching through a courtyard of crouching Vietnamese slave laborers in a low cut bright red dress and pearls! Vincent Perez, as Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Le Guen, is very handsome but it is his character development that it most importance in this film. LInh Dan Phan, as the young Camille, goes from high school girl to Communist icon. She is youthful perfection and thus the contrast between Camille's soft budding beauty and womanhood is contasted with her adopted mother's cool sophisticated mature grand beauty.Now for the complexity. Our three main characters are in for some major changes in their lives and world views. We start with Eliane, a woman totally in control of her emotions and source of income, rearing an adopted heiress native girl on the brink of womanhood. Jean-Baptiste, a dashing young Lieutenant, begins the film as an adventuerer, attracted to older rich Eliane, not only for her beauty but because she would be a conquest. He has callous disregard for the Vietnamese people. In an early scene he orders a boat burned with a Vietnamese family aboard because they are in the canal after curfew. Love for Camille jerks him from his existence as a French naval officer to a military deserter traveling with a band of Communist insurgents. Camilla starts the film as a Catholic School girl, an heiress to the vast lands of her natural parents and to her adopted mother, Eliane. She is destined to be the wife of a young Chinese mandarin but her love of Jean-Baptiste moves her to incredible acts of challenge and survival that transforms her from a spoiled young princess to a legendary icon of the liberation movement. There are other characters of importance, but the Police Captain, played by Jean Yanne, is a wonderful character. Whereas the other characters go through vast changes, he remains the same; a cynical, world-weary, wise, older man. He knows the French suppresse the Vietnamese for financial gain, but he is resigned to play his role of trying to identify the insurgents and suppress them. He knows the French have become decadant, but he is no saint and becomes lovers with a night-club singer. It is his commentaries, primarily to Eliane, that tell the story of the rise of the Vietnamese nationalistic and communistic movements and the fall of the French empire in Indochina.As in many works of great literature, the character development of the main actors is interwoven with historical movement to which they must repond and in responding are transformed. This is certainly the case here as we see a French colonial empire full of the explotation and racism, social economic suppression, slave labor, classism, and decadence that occurs whenever one group of people exploits and suppresses another group.Vietnam was suppressed first by the Chinese and thus Chinese mandarin families had remained the upper class in much of Vietnam. The lived there for generations, intermarried some with the Vietnamese, but retained the upper rungs of the economic and social structure. The French allowed these Chinese to remain when they established military and economic control. The nationalistic and communistic movements were against both the Chinese upper class and the French military/economic class.As American audiences attempt to make sense of the Vietnamese war, it is films like this that reveal to us the historic suppression of these people and their innate desire for self-direction. We entered Vietnam to prop up a corrupt French empire, thus setting the stage for Vietnamese nationalists to seek help from Moscow and to move toward Communism. How foolish we were. It all boils down to those that do not know history are unfortunately fated to repeat it.

Few films touch my mind, heart and soul at once. This one does. It presents strong, multidimensional characters in complex situations, and who change, grow, and cope with challenges and tragedy in sometimes surprising ways. I am stunned to see the reviews that saw the actors as wooden, the directing inconsistent, or the story lacking: they didn't see what I saw, suggesting that different experiences lead to different perceptions. This film can be seen at many levels and with many interpretations: among them, it showed how individuals may support tyranny with the best of intentions, oppression must fail, and change requires sacrifice...love may conquer, but perhaps not as one hopes for individual joy. There were no innocents, no ineffably strong heroes in this film. The characters portrayed people with whom I could relate, and understand, and cry for. Yet all of the central characters had (at least at some point) participated in enforcing oppression, or committed murder for various compelling reasons. It shows that those who accept the call to fight injustice may be compelled to sacrifice their personal happiness if not their lives-- and their motives are not necessarily noble. The film provides insight to the history that led to the Vietnam war, and relevant perspectives for reflecting on present problems of terrorism, cultural imperialism, and political justifications for war. As in life, there is no single correct view, no one correct line of action, only flawed humans, inadequate policies, and political systems dedicated to reinforcing a status quo. And Indochine shows the failures, the struggles and the human drama...will we ever learn from history?

Historic fiction filmed with great beauty. Highly recommended!

This is an absolutly stunning film with a equal cast. Nearly every veteran or visitor to Vietnam tell me the same thing about the remarkable beauty of the land. This film tells as others have in other ways in other locations how good meaning wealthy landlords thinking the are themselves now as "native" as the natives only hasten the end. The blindness in the eyes of s Deneuve's character isn't much different tothe blindness of what one sees in the plantation owners of El Salvador thinking giving their peasents homes and cristmas gifts.

We selected this for a Movie Night and it was worth every minute of the two hours and forty minutes!In colonial-era Vietnam, Jean-Baptiste played by the super handsome Vincent Perez, is a dashing French naval captain; Elaine (Catherine Deneuve) is an independent and wealthy plantation owner of French parentage; and her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille (Linh Dan Pham), are the three points of a cross-cultural romantic triangle. As the struggle against European imperialism sweeps Indochina, Jean-Baptiste and Camille have to choose sides and the strong Eliane faces the emotionally difficult challenge of raising the child of her daughter and ex-lover. What a position to be in... I do confess, I could look at Vincent Perez all day but the story was just so watchable...Highly recommended!

Indochine is simply one of the best foriegn language films ever made. The performances by Catherine Deneuve and the supporting cast are authentic and engrossing. Catherine Deneuve would have to be one of the 20th Century's finest actresses. Indeed there are no actresses around today who could match her performance in this film.The back drop of both Vietnam, Mayalsia and Geneva are stunning to look at. The use of politics and power of the french colonial rulers and rich landowners is both intriuging and a good lesson in the politics of the time. Everyone should watch Indochine at least once in their life, if for nothing else but to gain a better understanding of Vietnam and to see how beautiful it is.