Indochine (1992) Reviews

• Forget the Maltin comment about tripe

  sekander2000-06-20

  After seeing The Scent of Green Papaya, I was not expecting much, just a vehicle for Catherine Deneuve. And while it most definitely is that, it is also so much more. The stunning cinematography, the elegant score, and the epic love story set against the turbulent colonial times. I was quite taken with the myriad plot twists. Too bad our high schooler has a 3minute attention span. This is a very real depiction of colonialism. One reviewer noted the maternalism of Deneuve's character while pointing out the brutality of the slave sellers. People expecting a total condemnation of colonialism or a total condemnation of communism just don't see the gray between the black and white. Unfortunately, only Europeans could have made this movie. There is no didactic viewpoint, which is why some Americans don't react well to it. While the ending is a bit flat, it still doesn't detract from the fact that this was a great movie. One of the little pleasures of this movie is listening to the Vietnamese housemaid's pidgin French and reading the subtitled translation. While movies like The Scent of Green Papaya are wonderful and deserve all the accolades they are accorded, this movie is very underrated. Green Papaya is a nice cultural experience but it can't come close to Indochine for grit and history. 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

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• Good

  Blite20002004-09-12

  I thought it was good, if over-long. I've been reading the comments and people saying things about Indochine's realism. From what I can understand from my family (who are all half-French, half-Vietnamese, and who left Vietnam pretty much at the time the film wraps up), the sense you get of Eliane "being in charge" of the Vietnamese, and the failure to look at things from the viewpoint of the Vietnamese themselves, but only from the French perspective, is pretty accurate. Society was essentially segregated in Saigon / Indochina. One member of my family told me a story about how they left the French "compound" in Saigon one day with their mother and - for the first time - saw the real Vietnamese people, in tattered clothes... Cue "why are they in rags, mummy?" "because that's the way most people live." So, as I see it at least, I wouldn't criticise this film for the sense you get of the French being oblivious to the reality of their existence in Indochina. That's the way it was. That's the way most colonies were, in fact (think Shanghai). And I think that's the masterstroke of this film: that people lived their lives without ever thinking about the broader impact of what was going on, until everything just fell to pieces around their ears.

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• Foreshadows the American failure in Vietnam

  DeeNine-22004-04-08

  There is some difference of opinion about whether this is a good film or not. Some have called it a "soap opera" beautifully filmed. (Both Leonard Maltin in his Movie and Video Guide and the good people at Video Hound used that designation.) But I don't think that is correct at all. Beautifully filmed yes, stunning at times like something from David Lean; and in fact this film has more in common with the Hollywood panoramic epic than it does with the tradition of the French cinema. But it is certainly not a soap opera. In a soap opera the important element is a narrow focus on things material, social, and sexual played out in a banal, cliché-ridden and bourgeois manner. In Indochine the focus is on political change and why it came about. The story begins in Vietnam in 1930 and concludes on the eve of the communist revolution in 1954--presaging the tragic American involvement a decade later. Catherine Deneuve plays Eliane Devries, the strong-willed owner of a rubber plantation in Vietnam, then part of the French colonial empire. Having no children of her own (or a husband) she raises the Vietnamese girl Camille (Linh Dan Pham) as her own. She conducts secret affairs (and even visits opium dens) while maintaining the appearance of respectability. We are shown the decadence of the French living in Vietnam and the exploitive evils of colonialism, hardy the stuff of soap opera. We are made aware of the social unrest stirring amongst the population and even shown what amounts to a slave auction conducted by the colonial powers with the aid of the French military, in particular, the French navy. Enter Jean-Baptiste (Vincent Perez), a handsome French naval officer who, despite the difference in their ages, initiates an affair with Eliane. She is at first put off, then reluctant, and then madly in love. Perhaps this familiar progression is what some think of as soap opera material; and perhaps it is, although their affair is only a small part of the film, and at any rate, such behavior is entirely consistent with Eliane's character and that of Jean-Baptiste, and is necessary for the plot developments to come. Deneuve was nominated for Best Actress by the Academy but didn't win (Emma Thompson won for Howard's End), but the film itself won as Best Foreign Film. In truth Deneuve's performance is a little uneven. Regardless, this is one of the most important roles in the career of an actress who was as beautiful in 1991 when this film was made as she had been in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) at the beginning of her career. Indeed, I would say even more beautiful. My favorite Deneuve film, by the way, is Mississippi Mermaid (1969) with Jean-Paul Belmondo directed by Francois Truffaut. Also uneven is the direction by Regis Wargnier. The scenes set in Saigon involving the French and the Mandarins at their pleasures amid their wealth as they maintain their privilege are done with strikingly beautiful interiors splashed with the kind of color seen in, for example, the films of Chinese director Zhang Yimou. The scenes amount to indictments of the French and demonstrate why the communists eventually came to power. Note that the privileged are always decked out in the most amazing displays of color while the workers and the peasants are brown and dirty. The panoramic cinematography of the Vietnamese country is also strikingly beautiful. We are shown the sheer cliffs falling into tranquil waters dotted with junks, the rock outcrops nestled in verdant growth, the angry skies, and the deluge of the monsoon. But the trek of Camille across the land to find her beloved is not realistically done. Her quick incorporation in a peasant family is also not convincing. And the following scene in which she and Jean-Baptiste escape from the slave market defies probability. However what becomes of her and him is brutally realistic and consistent with what we know about those times, although I would like to have seen them being fed when they are rescued and some indication of how they spent their time in that Shangri-la-like hidden valley. Despite the flaws and inconsistencies, this is a fine cinematic experience, enthralling, disturbing and visually beautiful. See this as a prelude to all other films about Vietnam and the Vietnam War. What will become clear is how foolish was our involvement and how doomed to failure it had to be. (Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

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• Third time to watch it, I still cried for 15 minutes

  westpenn492000-08-17

  OK let's get it out of the way up front, Eliane IS France, Camille IS Vietnam the story is their story. Of course it is told from the French viewpoint, France is telling the story about her child growing up. It is a sad story, the French lost. It was not a happy story for the Vietnamese they had to fight for 2 more years to be reunited and struggle for 15 more to start to come out of the whole process. That said this is one of the most beautiful movies ever made, period. The intricate ballet of personal dealings and politics is carried out so well that one can easily get lost in the levels, just as one can get lost in the intricate dance that is life in Asia. What you see is what you see, it may be more or less depending. I do not believe that the movie defends France not does it condemn her. That part of the story is wisely left alone, what remains is a human drama of the folly of resisting the inevitability of change. As the film unfolds the sheer weight of history comes down on all involved. It is that weight that brings the tears. From the time that Jean-Baptiste is brought to Saigon to the closing credits, there is no escape for anyone. The old order is out the new is awaiting its time of entry upon the stage. It is a time for tears, a time to mourn and ultimately a time to heal. Americans in particular have a funny sense of history. We forget that others have been down the same roads before us. France's relationship with vietnam was most likely more of a force in the history of its people than ours with all of our napalm will ever be, because the French left a legacy of life that could be seen even in the senslessness of the American presence. This movie captures that relationship and transcends it. Masterpiece is the lest one can say about such a work.

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• Beautifully done epic

  snowball-152000-06-06

  This is a wonderful very tragic movie about love triangle set against French fall down in Vietnam. I was actually quite surprised at one of the comments, which roughly said that the Vietnamese girl falls in love with French officer for no reason at all. Does not everybody know that love always happens for no reason at all? That is why many famous love stories are tragic, people tend to fall in love with completely wrong people, from different perspectives. I did not seem wrong to me that Elaine was "mothering" her Vietnamese workers. Remember "Gone with the wind"? How Scarlett's mother was treating her slaves, tending to them when they were sick? I believe that many people felt that way towards their slaves/servants/workers. Elaine grew up in Vietnam, she thought about it as her home and Vietnamese as her people, though in a bit simplistic way. What I am trying to say, is that her relationship with Vietnamese in the movie does not look untrue. Perhaps to some people it just looks politically incorrect these days, when most people think that colonization was all that bad. It is too complicated an issue and the movie was not about it. On the contrary, the movie wins while portraying both caring and cruel French people in Indochina, not painting only with black and white colors, rather raising questions, than giving simplistic answers. It is rare in movies these days. This movie is done with impeccable European charm and gets 10/10 from me. I am ready to defend my viewpoint at the Message Boards any time.

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