The film was released at a unique time when France has already passed the sharp headlight of reflection associated with the loss of Vietnam, but not yet the time of the “agenda” when certain events can be covered strictly from one side.
Because of this feature, the film amazingly combines old-school romantic melodrama, where beautiful characters performed by beautiful actors beautifully give way to passion, and with another – a drama in which other people try to survive.
There are many films that contain no less polar worlds, but there is always a Rubicon that separates the realities. There are not 2 worlds and 2 genres extremely organically and bizarrely intertwined, and the atmosphere of what is happening very quickly draws into yourself and you just want to look.
Yes, if you include criticism and start from a formal point of view to analyze the details, you can find fault with everything, but the film does not even try to be authentic and try to evaluate 100% of the artistic product for compliance with reality, history or anything else completely wrong.
The only thing that can scare off viewing the modern viewer is too sweet and unnatural breakthroughs of the passion of the characters at the beginning of the film, but if you wait a little, then this masterpiece blooms without any but or if.
10 out of 10
Do not dare to talk about the freedom to hide the weakness of your shoulders.
In the Versailles Museum there is a canvas by Jean-Leon Gerome depicting (with a great degree of historical accuracy, according to the opinions of the contemporaries involved), the reception of the ambassadors of Siam by Napoleon III, the first in two hundred glorious years after the unsuccessful attempt to colonize Indochina by Louis the Sixteen. On it, under the arched, three-part, with Renaissance allegory decorated vaults of the royal palace of Fontainebleau, in front of a row of courtly straights, in ebony frocks or in painted ones, in axelbants and order ribbons of uniforms of tightened dignitaries, looking at the Bonapartist, predatory, prematurely balding imperial family, diagonally from the moth-gent, in kisei and Bruge hats, half-blazhats on top of the karzhats, karzhenozhats, karskami, karzhenkahlatskatskas, and kamiyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyuyu. Working crawl, calluse elbows, shining large sweat on steep cheekbones - to slouch-drool the varnish of the imperial stiblets. And the emperor is dispassionate, unperturbed, the slightest squeamish, recollecting how the refusal of the Jesuit brothers to crawl on scrubs to the throne of the Siamese king Narai caused the failure of the diplomatic mission of the Sixteenth Louis. And one glance at the naked face of little Napoleon is enough to understand: no white in the world he created will crawl on scrubs before color, be colored even three times by the king of Siam - moreover, the very idea of somehow challenging the color hierarchy of crucibles is taken by the court artist beyond the brackets of the rationally permissible. And this consciousness is attained – for the first time! – not by the methods of war and diplomacy, but stylistically. Similarly, stylistically, one hundred and thirty years after the reception of Siam’s ambassadors to Fontainebleau, Regis Varnier – formally the most anti-colonial of his film – puts Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos on the scrubs at the same time, with a single plot twist, removing the cold, arrogant, luxuriously fascinating beauty of Catherine Deneuve, that is, the brilliance of France in its most attractive, most incomparable version, leaving Asia alone with its own shameful exoticism.
For in the past are gone the days of exoticism – “hunger for spices”, saturation with the sediments of beauty in museums and the life of settled culture, intoxication with the poison of consciousness, the causative agent of sensitivity, as opposed to healthy food of the spirit, and even more so the search in distant countries for “natural man”. Rousseau or Noah-Noah Gauguin. Postcolonial, de facto disgraced, if you count Kipling, France, shedding the burden of whites from the pampered shoulders of colonial barbarism at the first sign of calluses on their lily skin, urgently needed artistic rebranding, in rethinking their shame, in processing it into something as attractive as possible, flattering, coveted. And Varnier coped with this task “excellently”. Having, of course, adopted the method of Pierre, for example, Loti, consisting in penetrating the soul of little-known nationalities through kisses and hugs, in a sense of “color and form”, reduced to the touch of “quivering flesh” of all colors and shades, but also in a completely French way, with the shamelessness of returning to condo classicism, maximally clichéd the system of their characters, turning them into functions, transparent and vivid symbols in the service of new propaganda.
Eliana, the heroine of Deneuve, has an imperishable French culture, icy, dry, rational, cruelly idealistic, rigidly disciplined, blood-industrious, not counting with a heart and a mind different from the Gallic one, but irresistibly alluring its inaccessibility, its refinement, its inimitable, glossy, secrets and impossibility, complete grace. Together with her, Indochina leaves not just France, it leaves civilization itself, leaving the country to the likes of Camilla, called the daughter of Eliana, pampered but colored children, brought up according to French patterns and too literally took the republican principles paid for with much blood - and therefore rebelled against their teachers, but who know only what they were taught, and therefore only reproduce blood, savagery and madness of the revolution a century and a half ago. However, their children, born in free Indochina, with their exoticism and their Asian otherness, gravitate and gravitate to the land of the oppressors of the generation of their fathers, flying like thoughtless butterflies to French beauty, softness, fragrance. If we take as a basis the metaphor of Paul Claudel, who saw Indochina in the form of a banyan, which does not grow from a single point: the threads hang from it, with which he returns to look for his mother’s breast, which is like a temple that gives birth to itself, then the breast to which modern Indochina falls is French, not because it is more milky than the Asian one, but because it is more elegant, whiter, tenderer. Indochina never became "a coconut palm, an image of triumph that throws up a lush peak and is exhausted from the burden of its freedom, and on hot days it opens the leaves in the ecstasy of happiness, and in the place where they diverge, you can see the skulls of coconuts, like the heads of children." The anthem of the philistine power of European civilization, which has lost everything, but has gnawed comfort with its bloody fangs, sounds like Varnier’s film. So do not weep, do not weep, Yvette, that our song is sung; as long as the banana breaks under the wind, to the cries of the Singapore monkeys, all the pink dreams of dull mestizos will be only about the great honor of varnishing the patented stamp on the pile of a real obusson. Not about freedom, not about freedom.
That is the only way to describe this film. From the very beginning he was imbued with tragedy and that is why he did not let go.
Reading the description for the film, I thought that Indochina is just a good backdrop for a love tragedy. But no, he's a tragedy in himself. Watching the privations of the Asian people was unbearable. As well as white cattle. A small handful of rice for the whole family, a slave market, the murder of rebels. All this depressing and forced to doubt the realism of the film. After all, such atrocities cannot happen in a civilized country in the twentieth century.
Communists and revolutions are very difficult problems. On the one hand, they liberate their country, but on the other, they drown it in blood, often innocent. And who said that independence will change everything?
But historically, everything is flawless. Complete immersion in colonial life. Although the film is not a documentary to observe the life of the local population, colonists, clothes, music, customs, architecture was extremely interesting and informative. There was no sense of falsehood.
The relationship between Jean-Baptiste and Camila is a separate topic. What struck me the most was the scene when he gave her water through his saliva. It was more convincing than a thousand words and a million roses. One of the most powerful scenes of the film is the meeting of Jean-Baptiste and Camila in the slave market. There were so many unspoken words in their eyes, a storm of emotion. They had a really great love.
Camila's personality is very sympathetic to me. She may be romantic and exalted, but she is alive. A man who knows how to love, suffer, burn to the ground. She's fair and sensitive. These are two of the rarest qualities in the human world. This is probably what a young girl should be. In the end, her behavior becomes controversial. It is difficult to assess unequivocally her refusal to return home and join the Communists. It is both a vile and noble act at the same time. I don’t think I’ll ever know if she was good or bad. This can’t be measured in black and white. It's something outside the rules, gray.
Jean-Baptiste is a positive hero. In a world where orders and money decide everything, he remained a man. Despite the fact that it was unprofitable and generally interfered. The courage with which he accepted his fate and defended Camila was astounding. I think he is the ideal of a man.
The movie is amazing. He asks difficult questions, makes you feel, learn something new, become better. You think about what you would do in a given situation, which is probably the most important sign of a good movie.
When we were young, we thought the world was made up of inseparable concepts: men and women, mountains and plains, people and dogs, Indochina and France. . .
One of the cut scenes included in the expanded version of Apocalypse Now is when Willard and his teammates come across a rubber plantation colonized by the French many years ago. Despite the fact that the First Indochina War ended more than a decade ago and Vietnam became an independent state, the French colonists will defend this remote outpost of French civilization to the last drop of blood. I’ve watched Apocalypse Now more than once and it’s one of my favorite scenes. So I decided to “fill in the gap in my education” and watched “Indochina”.
The film begins in the late 1910s, when Eliana Devrvier adopts Camilla, the heiress of the Nguyen dynasty. Due to this, the possessions of the Devrvier family are greatly increased and the rubber plantation of Eliana becomes one of the largest in Southeast Asia. Ten years later, Eliana raises Camilla as her own daughter and the rubber plantation brings fabulous income. At the same time, Eliana begins an affair with a young naval officer, Jean-Baptiste. Everything goes on as usual until Jean-Baptiste saves Camille from the terrorist and mutual love flares up between them. Eliana, wishing to protect her stepdaughter, organizes the transfer of Jean-Baptiste to a remote outpost and agrees to the engagement of Camilla with another Vietnamese aristocrat – the communist Thanem expelled from Paris. Immediately after the engagement, Camilla, with the approval of Thanh, escapes from Saigon and goes in search of Jean-Baptiste. ..
The film opens with an idyllic colonial life: a huge plantation; a strict but fair Eliana, calling workers "children" and never punishing them without good reason; the peaceful coexistence of the French and Vietnamese elites. However, this idyll is preserved in the walls of the plantation and, for now, in Saigon.
Behind the walls of the plantation, the flames of revolution begin to burn. At first ineptly, the first revolutionaries set arson and sabotage, carried out the murder of collaborators. Camilla, who broke out of her “golden cage”, sees the lives of ordinary Vietnamese and is imbued with revolutionary ideas.
French society has been shown to be inert and incapable of opposing the inflaming revolutionary flame. The only person trying to fight the revolutionary front is the head of the colonial police, Guy, but his work is sabotaged by the lack of support from the army and navy and the fateful decision of the Popular Front Government to release all Vietnamese political prisoners.
One of the most important roles in the film is played by love. We can say that love is, to some extent, the catalyst for almost all the events in this film. Love is both a blessing and a curse. Virtually every Indochina storyline begins with love: Eliana’s love for her adopted daughter; Camilla’s love for Jean-Baptiste; Thang’s love, and later Camilla’s love for her native land. In the end, Eliana manages to capture a piece of Indochina, who is “no longer alive” in the image of her grandson Etienne – the son of Jean-Baptiste and Camilla – and her love for her grandson will symbolize the love for the forever disappeared old colony.
Catherine Deneuve, who once posed for the national symbol of France Marianne, and in this film personifies her native country. At first glance, Eliana seems cold, arrogant and impregnable, but “behind the facade” before the viewer appears vulnerable and able to love a woman. She is capable of courageous actions that inspire her workers, but circumstances are stronger than her, and after twenty years she, along with her grandson Etienne, becomes a fragment of the French Empire. Other actors also showed themselves on a high level: Vincent Perez in the image of impulsive Jean-Baptiste; Jean Yang as the cynical policeman Guy and the list goes on forever.
Summing up, I want to say that it turned out a sad, sincere and beautiful film. I recommend watching Indochina paired with The Last Emperor by Bernardo Bertolucci.
In suffocating Saigon, where the air is soaked with malaria and the smell of rubber from plantations, where gramophone records melt from the heat, where both whites and coolies find salvation only in opium tubes, this love story takes place. Not one love story. A love story where everyone loves each other. Camilla loves Jean-Baptiste, Eliana loves Camilla, Jean-Baptiste loves Camilla and Etienne, Guy loves Eliana. Even Eliana's old father loves some Vietnamese woman.
Everyone loves so much, everyone is loved. Love is in the air. Everyone has to sacrifice something for their love. For the love of your daughter, sacrifice love for a man. For the love of the Motherland to sacrifice love for his son. For the love of a woman to sacrifice career and officer duty. For the love of your son, sacrifice your life. But everyone finds meaning and comfort in this sacrifice. In the end, everyone finds their happiness as they imagine it.
So in a few words you can describe the content of the film “Indochina”. In the twenty years since he was filmed, when he collected a bouquet of all sorts of “Cesars”, “Oscars”, “Globes”, he was slightly forgotten by the audience. Although from the artistic side, it still looks fresh and bright. And the story told in it for all time. This is typically French, seasoned with Asian flavor, a love story.
The theme of the film is completely unused - the events of the film take place in colonial Indochina, on the threshold of revolutions and the fall of the colonial regime. Everything related to the European colonies in Asia and Africa, filmmakers show little. This is a subject only for European cinema. The reflections of Europeans are not clear and close to Hollywood, and they have their own relations with Asia. There may be something about Asian cinema, because it is not very close to us. Therefore, only “White Material” by Claire Denis, and “Chinese Box” with Jeremy Irons come to mind.
And the topic is actually very complicated. Europeans sincerely believed that they brought to their colonies culture, progressive views, social order, the laws of civilization. “Vietnamese-Chinese-Africans” in their understanding were naive children who needed a firm parental hand, sometimes a whip – but all for their own good. Europeans opened the doors to the “semi-wild” peoples to another world, attached to the achievements of progress.
Of course, the “great” nations that had gone through bloody revolutions, the overthrow of monarchies, and the bloody path to democracy saw much differently. All these “Vietnamese-Chinese-Africans” suddenly decided to choose their own path, they themselves determined what freedom and unfreedom, democracy and equality mean to them. In Indochina, the love story is shown against the background of historical events. An agonizing colonial regime, growing communist sentiments. The French, on the one hand, understand that they are no longer able to hold the situation in their hands, and on the other hand, are hesitant to admit this almost accomplished fact.
Varnier is a great illustrator. Just as in the film “East-West” he reproduces the atmosphere in Russia in detail (as many of our domestic directors fail), so in “Indochina” he has a whole encyclopedia of colonial life. Beautiful views of Halong Bay, the atmosphere of old Saigon. The film is very well shot. I generally like the style of the 80s - 90s: smooth, not torn, logical. No more camera experiments and, thank goodness, no 3D. It is even scary to imagine what the current masters of cinema could create.
But the most important advantage of the film is the excellent acting. Here's what's amazing: in a French love film, there's not a single candid scene, not a single immodest kiss. But love permeates the whole movie. And every actor plays his own love. Guy’s performance of Jean Janne – she is youthful and hopeless, despite his already more than mature age. Love performed by Vincent Perez is a love that makes not just grow up – grow old.
And Eliana, played by Catherine Deneuve, is obsessed with motherly love. She loves her adopted daughter, she considers her coolies her children. Even Jean-Baptiste she loves like a child. And she devotes her whole life to her grandson, who becomes her main love in life. For Eliana, the love of this boy, who calls her mother in the finale of the film, is more important than all other “loves”. Although someone once called the basic instinct of reproduction, but Catherine Deneuve convinces the viewer that the basic instincts can be different. For her character, this is a maternal instinct.
In general, the film turned out to be extremely clean. All heroes evoke compassion, none disgust. The viewer empathizes with both Guy and Yvette, performed by Dominic Blanc. Even Camille, estranged from the child and the mother, causes only pain and understanding. After the film there is no disgusting feeling, which often happens after digging into the human essence in other films. Varnier gives hope and a bright sense of suffering and deserved happiness.
Indochina, regardless of its current popularity, has long been the gold standard of French cinema. The highest quality work of all its creators. Recognition and love of the audience. I am sure that in many decades, films like Indochina will remain from modern cinema. Unlike many of today's box office leaders.
"Indochina" is a deep and strong French drama, which turned out to be very impressive and touching. This big budget film turned out to be high-quality and worthy, he received an Oscar deservedly. The film has both love and beauty, but on the other hand, severity and pain. I’ve been impressed by this movie for a long time and for me it will be one of the best and most notable films of 1992. The French are fans of sophisticated and atmospheric films, but this movie turned out to be more deep and large-scale, so it is aimed at the West, and it was well received and appreciated there.
We see a rich and beautiful woman who has plantations in a beautiful country in troubled and troubled times, and she has a girl who lives and learns from her, but they both fall in love with one charming and hot-tempered officer, and then a young girl leaves behind him and sees what horror and injustice is happening in the country.
Catherine Deneuve is one of my favorite French actresses, and in this film she was just adorable. She is a beautiful, sensual woman and a talented actress, and I love her, and I always love watching movies with her, and I really wanted her to get an Oscar for this role, but the nomination is also of course good. In this drama, she played very emotionally and sensually, and her character was controversial and the role was not easy, but Deneuve looked chic on the screen, so this movie is one of my favorites with her participation. Vincent Perez is an unusual and interesting actor and a charming man, and this film is one of the best in his career as an actor, and in this drama I liked Perez, and he played well and as always talented and without falsehood. I liked the duet of these actors, and they looked beautiful together on the screen.
There are films in the world cinema that must be seen, because they have their beauty, exclusivity and cinematic value, and this drama is just that, and therefore it undoubtedly deserves attention and positive feedback. “Indochine” (Indochina) is a film about love, about war, about injustice, about difficult times, about how a person’s worldview can quickly change if he learns the truth of a bitter life, and this movie turned out to be impressive and with deep thinking, and its story is shown peculiar and touching in the style of French cinema.
9 out of 10
I never understood and will not understand why many people pass by this picture ... someone completely passes, and someone emotionally, without feeling the film a drop.
Indochina has a surprisingly low rating, including on the infamous international film site. Audiences call it a soap opera, too long and slow. Who? The Americans. Starting with a famous critic. American of course.
By the way, this critic calls “Indochina” an attempt by the French to shoot their “Gone with the Wind”, and Vietnam – an American trauma. Need a comment? That’s not enough... he, believing (probably) that he’s a brilliant critic, puts 2.5 stars on Indochina and East West, while scoring 3 stars on Man of Steel. Is it possible to make a good movie outside of great America? As a close friend of mine, an American, said, oddly enough (though he hasn’t lived there for 8 years), “We are an export nation.” We don’t care if someone makes movies or writes music, we don’t import anything.” Isn't it? I think Indochina would have been watched by only a few in this country, but the Oscar movie got where to go. The review of one American woman who called all the characters inconclusive, because she does not understand who and why feels something, and most of all she does not understand how it suddenly just escaped, and then the girl is already pregnant. Damn, the writers are terrible, they forgot to show her the whole process. Of course, a dozen compatriots agreed with her, adding “what do you want, French cinema!”
Probably, the fans of “Transformers” and “Spider-Man” and really not here. As for those for whom a movie without thrills is a waste of time. Indochina is a contemplative film, you have to feel it, nothing more. Of course, I am not a critic (which I am very happy about, since it seems strange to me that my opinion is more correct than others), but for me personally, Indochina is my favorite film.
Much of what the overseas viewer did not like, on the contrary, pleases me. Especially since there is no clear division between good and bad. All the characters in the film are real, real, real.
To command men - a man's craft
- That's what all men say (c)
How amazingly good was Katrina Deneuve as Eliana! I can’t believe she was 49 years old at the time of filming. In my opinion, her best role. With what arrogant expression she says this phrase to Jean-Baptiste, but how she looks at him when he throws her: “Come on, you do not like the role of a praying woman.” Is she a strong woman? Does she want to be her? One of the most striking scenes that will demonstrate her true self is the episode of a factory fire, when a crowd of peasants, whether Vietnamese or French, were all afraid to go inside, and she, as fragile, feminine as especially in a silk flying dress, comes. Because there's no one else. And then he cries, leaning against the wall. But who cares? And as she ends up telling Etienne about Jean-Baptiste: "If it weren't for you, I would have gone after him." She loved him, but there was too much but.
Jean-Baptiste scornfully throws: “A woman decides my fate,” and what is left for her when her girl falls in love with the one who hurt her? She says she loved Camille more than anything. Another question is that Jean-Baptiste, burning with passion for Eliana, could not step over the pride... a woman who commands men, used to receiving everything (remember the scene with the picture at the auction), her father, offering for money to leave her... after the last even her step to him to meet only irritates him ... and the complete opposite of her is Camilla ... falling in love schoolgirl, childish, naive, as it seems to him, it is stupid and frivolous (his words in conversation with Eliana on the eve of his transfer from Saigon), but... Eliana was right - he couldn't resist Camilla. Her love bordered on deification, she needed nothing but him, he became her life... could Elian look at him as a god? Hardly. And Camille... a princess, a girl from a rich family, in a rag, sharing a handful of rice with the beggars, and it doesn’t even seem that she suffers... it seems that she will do anything just to be with him... she left everything for him, and at some point it is already clear that everything she touches will be destroyed, and she says to him: “If tomorrow morning, when I wake up, you will be gone, I will understand.” And he couldn't resist. Many people found his love strange, out of nowhere, but I didn’t. He said he was suffocating in this country. Those outbursts of anger and mad eyes. In the scenes with Eliana, it seems that he is the embodiment of unrestrained passion. And Camille brought him peace. There was tenderness in him. This story is like two Jean-Baptistes - with and without her. Vensan Perez the lowest bow for acting. One of his best roles.
So strange, at the time of filming, Vincent was only 28 and Catherine was 49. What an amazingly beautiful couple! However, Vincent looked no less beautiful from the 19-year-old Pham Lin Dan. She is such a gentle, touching, very successful choice of actress for the role. I can say that about every actor. Even in episodic roles there are no miscalculations.
I've also read that the film has an indistinct ending, right? Even in theory, I wouldn’t want to imagine anything else... but I agree, not in Hollywood. However, it is not a minus for everyone. One of the most powerful scenes, in my opinion, is where Eliana is looking for Camille in the crowd, and Camilla is asking about Etienne. I don't know, maybe there's something slurring around here, and I could barely hold back my tears. It was not very successful.
It is simply impossible to mark all the bright moments in the film, I would have to mention every minute. In addition to the love lines, the film is full of historical, political, everyday motives ... and, however, I can not help but note the scene where the Vietnamese are sorted like vegetables on the market, weighing on the scales, checking the teeth.
It’s my favorite movie and I can’t write down how many points to give it, there’s no rating. For me personally. It is just bitter to realize that this masterpiece, impeccable in every frame, with amazing music, perfect acting, ringing the beauty of nature, which for me personally raised Direct Varnier to sky-high heights, loses, and significantly, in the assessment of the audience to Batman, Spider-Man and Transformers. Thank you for not having Twilight. Sad.
And to all those who do not expect only entertainment from the cinema, who are ready to distract from the action and just feel, I highly recommend not to miss this movie.