Customer Reviews

Indochine [VHS]

5 star:		(65)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This deeply felt and emotionally rich portrait of a country about to change forever is one of the most beautiful films ever made. It is elegant and opulent in its visual presentation and subtle in its human tale of heartbreak. This film has the majesty of morning sunlight on water we dare not shield our eyes from for fear we will miss one moment of its glory.

Director Reigis Wargnier has created a masterpiece of epic beauty, showing us the country of Vietnam when it existed as the French colony Indochine. He shows how and why the communist uprising was so popular and the way of life it threatened. It does not make judgements but shows the human drama and the heartbreak caused by a way of life that existed and the one that was coming to change it.

Wargnier accomplishes all this in a slow and visually stunning portrait of one family in Indochine. The story is centered around the magnificent performance of Catherine Deneuve as French rubber plantation owner Eliane Deveries, and the equally terrific Linh Dan Phan as her adopted Indochine daughter Camille. The contrasts of Eliane's cool elegance and Camille's young and sensual beauty is like a mirror for the country itself as Wargner shows the difference between the French and those that serve them.

Eliane runs her rubber plantation with the help of her 'coolies' and it appears to be her entire life except for her daughter Camille. But Eliane's cool outward elegance only masks the repressed emotions she hides from others. Her affairs have been casual and she believes indifference is the secret to surviving love. But that indifference changes dramatically as she finally falls hard for young French Naval Officer Vincent Perez (Jean-Baptiste Le Guen). She throws herself at him as he draws away and discovers she is not enough for Vincent.

There is much unrest at the class distinctions of Indochine. Eliane's Indochine is one of elegance and self-indulgence. It is a world of Fitzgerald and Gatsby. The world of the Indochene people is more severe. This film takes its time showing us all that is beautiful about the country and slowly begins to show the darkness underneath that beauty when Camille falls in love with Vincent also. Eliane is stunned beyond words but not actions as she uses her clout to have him transferred to the farthest outpost so Camille can go through with an arranged marriage to Tanh (Eric Nguyen).

But Eliane has underestimated her daughter's love for Vincent and she runs away to find him. Vincent has learned about the slave trade which provides Eliane and others like her with their workers in this remote French outpost and sees firsthand its brutality. When Camille finds him it is during the picking of these workers and a tragedy forces both to flee to a place hidden and supposedly cursed, where their love will bloom and a legend will start. There are some tender and moving moments and some true heartbreak involving a baby.

As the communist revolution grows stronger and Camille is imprisoned, Vincent will meet Eliane once more. It is only when Camille is imprisoned that she is even sure she is alive. Her long time aquaintance Guy (Jean Yanne) has been searching for years as the legend of this young beauty has grown so that everyone in the country knows the story. Once released she will be the one to help change the country forever, but not before a heartbreaking meeting with her mother and a sacrifice of love.

This film may indeed be slow but it is emotionally rich and the visual beauty of the country itself is magnificently captured. Deneuve's cool elegance is perfect for the part and her Oscar nomination was well deserved. Linh Dan Phan is wonderful as Camille as she goes from the innocence of dancing with her mother to a symbol for her entire country. There are no judgements made here. This is a human film and not a political one. This film is what a Renoir painting would be if it could leave the canvas and find our hearts. It is an impression of a country and a time rather than a clear photograph.

Those who watch this film and stay with it will be richly rewarded. Few films can make the claim to be art, but this is one. Its quiet beauty and sorrow you will not soon forget. You must see, and own, this magnificent film.

From the opening sequence of a royal funeral to the last shot of Deneuve in Switzerland, this movie had me enthralled. It has everything that makes a movie exceptional: strong acting from its leads, beautiful cinematography, a romantic and emotionally wrenching love story, a tense historical backdrop, beautiful actors and a well-plotted storyline. This movie draws you in, pulling you into that beautiful and passionate world of 1930's Indochina. (Indochina was the collective name of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos when they were still under French control)

The story revolves around a powerful French, plantation owner Eliane (Deneuve), her adopted Indochinese daughter Camille (Pham) and the French naval officer who romances these two women, Jean Baptiste (Perez). The movie starts off with Eliane having an illicit affair with the young Jean-Baptiste, only to have her heart broken when the officer starts feeling claustrophobic in their relationship. Unfazed, Eliane carries on with her life, running a lucrative business and raising the lovely Camille into the ways of the French. But things go awry when Camille and Jean-Baptiste accidentally meet. Believing that Jean-Baptiste saved her life, Camille falls head over heels in love with her mother's former lover. Thinking it in her daughter's best interest, Eliane uses her influence on the government to have Jean-Baptiste sanctioned to some remote outpost of Indochina. But a strong-willed Camille defies family and society and ventures into the countryside, alone, to join Jean-Baptiste. Along the way, Camille discovers first-hand the sufferings of her people under the French. When the two young lovers reunite, it is under circumstances that forces them to flee and hide from the authorities. To make things more complicated, the communist movement is gaining momentum, embroiling Camille and Jean-Baptiste in a situation that is beyond their (even Eliane's) control.

I've seen this movie more times than I can count, and everytime, it never fails to move me. Deneuve is gorgeous as ever and her acting is superb. She plays the scorned lover, worried mother and stern manager with amazing elegance and restraint, without making her character look stiff. She definitely deserved that Best Actress nomination. Vincent Perez is perfectly cast as the passionate Jean-Baptiste. With his dark, good-looks and amazing acting talent, he easily conveys all the ambiguities, and later on, the passions of Jean-Baptiste. But the real discovery here is Linh Dam Pham. She is stunningly beautiful as Camille and does so much with so little. Her role is underwritten, but with her sincerity and talent, Camille comes off alive and full of passion. A mere glance here and there and you see everything that Camille is feeling. Her Camille is an unforgettable heroine.

There is also amazing chemistry between the actors. Deneuve and Perez sizzle in their scenes. It is easy to see the passion that drove these two into their affair. But the most unforgettable and emotionally-charged scenes are those between Perez and Pham. Simple gestures and exchanged looks convey a deep and abiding love between the two characters. Their scenes in Halong bay can melt any cynic's bitter-shell.

Apart from being a romantic epic, Indochine is a rare honest look at the events that led to Vietnam's independence from France. The bloodshed, the filth, the oppression...it's all there. Nothing is glossed over. Kudos to the French for their honesty and reflection.

This movie should definitely be in any person's video library. When the end credits start rolling, the images will continue to haunt you. By then, you'll be glad you own the DVD. You can play it over and over again to your heart's content.

(...)

Sometimes I don't think the critics watch the films they review. I was stunned by this film. The cinematography is brilliant--the colors, the pagentry, the filth, the blood, the dreamy quality of a boat with two lovers drifting through those thousands of little vertical islands that lie off the coast of Asia so faithfully depicted in Chinese brush paintings and Blue Willow porcelein.

Catherine Deneuve is gorgeous. If any criticism can be leveled at the film it is that she is so beautiful, and her clothing so stunning it can be distracting at times. Her young lieutenant lover whose name excapes me (Queen Margot's lover) is smoldering. Her adopted (Vietnamese) daughter is a China doll.

The story takes place in what was French Indochina before WWII, and later became the countries of Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Thailand. The story centers on a rubber plantation owner (Deneuve) and her relationship with her adopted daughter. Deneuve raises the girl to have the European values. The daughter falls in love with a young French Lieutenant who has been until then the mother's lover. The mother does not want her daughter to be involved with this man for a variety of reasons. The daughter runs away and links up with the Lieutenant. On her journey, she sees first hand the plight of her native people. She becomes pregnant by the Lieutenant. Events lead her to become involved with the revolution against the French. If this film had been shown to American audiences back in the 1960's it would have been inflammatory. Might have started a peace movement.

This movie is one of my most favorites, and it is definitely the best when it comes to Asian-women-related film-making. The love triangle is quite enjoyable to follow and should satisfy all those who seek a romantic epic. The cinematography, the conversations, the directing, etc. are all excellent. And the actors/actresses and their acting are all good as well.

But what really makes movie outstanding is the way it portrays life as it was in Indochina in the 1930s. The movie is neither in favor of the French nor of the Vietnamese nationalists. It's neither in favor of the rich nor the poor. Everyone's life seem hard at the time, although some people's lives were much harder than others'. Everyone seems helpless against history, including the rich and the powerful. For example, that brief part about the slave trader is one of my favorite parts in the movie. Just like in other movies, he is the villain of the story, and he totally deserved to die. But then there was still something helpless about him, as if his life and its ending were not really his choice, as if both of them were just part of how life was at the time.

What I like most about the movie is how it portrays the image of Vietnamese women. I'm so SICK of Hollywood movies in which Asian women are always some sort of prostitues or suppressed/vulnerable women in need of help and protection ("The Quiet American" is an example of this). Yes, it is true that there are a lot of those women, especially in the old times, but such women are by no means representative of the whole female population. Yet through Hollywood movies, such wrong images about Asian women have somehow become stereotypes. "Indochine" is the first and only movie I know of that deviates from this main stream. In "Indochine", we see a Vietnamese girl who grew up in wealth and happiness, who might seem weak and vulnerable at first but needs noone's help or protection in the end, not because she comes from high class and is rich, but because she is a woman of strength and courage.

It's beautiful the way she gradually became a nationalist. Throughout her childhood, she was well protected from and hence knew nothing of the sufferings of her native country and people. Still, she is full of passion and spirit by nature, and that's why and how she had the courage to run away to find the man that she loved. Before she was aware of the outside world or of nationalism, all the passion and spirit inside her were directed toward her love for a man. As expected, those same passion and spirit were later on channeled toward her love for her country and people. This is the kind of image of Vietnamese/Asian women that should be represented more in movies.

Despite winning the academy award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1992, this film is universally panned by American critics who focus primarily on Catherine Deneuve, the movie's box office draw. But the story is not soley about Deneuve's character, rubber plantation owner Eliane Devries, and is indeed too large for any single character. The story's real focus is most fully developed in the second half of the film as adopted princess Camille (Linh Dan Pham) discovers her true legacy in French colonial Vietnam. During her epic quest to find her to-be lover, French naval officer Jean-Baptiste, the harsh brutality against her people and the startling beauty of her country are revealed through stunning cinematography that is at times cathedral in its beauty. One particularly moving and highly symbolic scene depicts Jean-Baptiste baptizing their infant son just moments before his capture (Baptiste unwittingly becomes a fugitive from the colonial society of which it is his sworn duty to protect). Ironically, the child of this unlikely union is not raised by either parent but by Eliane Devries, and himself symbolizes the mingled, uncertain future of the "Pearl of the Orient."

I am deeply moved every time I watch this epic drama which has become hands-down my favortite foreign film, but I'm obviously in the minority, at least among American viewers. The various subplots and central characters subtly yet powerfully symbolize the undercurrents within a French colonial society intent on imposing its identity on the Vietnamese society desperate to salvage its own. I would love to read some reviews by foreign viewers, particularly French and Vietnamese, of whom this tragic history concerns most deeply. In the meantime, check out Dennis Littrellis' review, which is critically insightful, here at Amazon.

Perfectly cast Catherine Deneuve plays a wealthy French woman born and raised in Indochina prior to the Communist takeover of what becomes Vietnam in 1955. She has adopted a native girl as her daughter, and the tragedy begins to play itself out as the child grows up and becomes part of the revolution.
Lushly filmed, giving a realistic picture of Hanoi and the countryside before decades of war and destruction decimated Vietnam.

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, cliche-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.

This film encompasses many themes, and is overall a very fufilling movie. I really found this movie inspirational in my studies of french. This movie really teaches one who is interested in the end of the French Colonization of Vietnam. The symbolic relationship of Catherine Deneuve with her adopted daughter is particularly moving when you examine it on two levels. One, the emotional seperation of a mother from her daughter. Two, this seperation also illustrates the Vietnamese people's choice to turn away from the French rule. In essence, when the daughter chooses to leave her french mother, it displays the choice to become one with her people and to turn away from the ideals even of her adpoted mother. Overall I believe that this movie is one which should be viewed by all those who are interested in Vietnam and the signifigance of the French colonization there.

Last night I had a chance to watch this movie again. Somehow, for the first time, I felt as it was an opera. Music was there, the voices were there, the theme was there and everything was so perfect as an Italian opera of the greatest composer. I took my time, I really did, to find anything wrong with this film and I could not. Now, let me tell you that I am a picky one. I can take apart anything if I don't like it and sometimes if I like it. But this one was so bulletproof that I faild to find the whole in it.

So, I guess, "Indocine" is one of very rare accasions in the cinematography when everything is perfect. How did they do it? I guess they just lived it. Well, if you have not seen it, you have to do it. This is not a movie to miss.

Catherine Deneuve plays a French planatation owner (Eliane) in colonial Vietnam whose relationship with the Vietnamese orphan girl (Camille) she adopted seems intended to allegorically mirror the political shift also depicted in the movie from a French colonial Vietnam to a nation struggling for liberation and identity. Superbly filmed and accompanied by a lush musical score, the film shows some stunning shots of the Vietnamese landscape particularly as Camille journeys through Vietnam after she flees her home. The movie is long (about 2 1/2 hours), and at times the emotions may seem played over the top. But Catherine Deneuve hits a poignant emotional climax towards the end of the movie, outside of the conference site of the Vietnam War peace talks in Paris. Well worth the over two hour wait.