A Vietnamese woman sums up the differences between her people and the French when she tells Indochine’s Eliane Devries (Catherine Deneuve), “I’ll never understand French people’s love stories. There’s nothing but folly, fury and suffering. Just like our war stories.” And the Vietnamese should know. After nearly a century of French colonial control, Vietnam, then known as Indochina, was tormented by decades of violence in pursuit of independence. Indochine is the story of these changes, told through the experiences of the wealthy landowner Eliane, her adopted Vietnamese daughter Camille (Linh Dan Pham), and a young French navy officer, Jean Baptiste (Vincent Perez). The story is heartbreaking – lost love is a recurring theme, as is Camille’s burning desire to make her own way even if that means repudiating her loving, but controlling, adoptive mother.
All of this serves as an allegory for the larger changes sweeping Indochina. Eliane represents both the best and the worst of imperialism – she truly loves the land and its people, and cares for her workers like a firm mother. Camille represents the naive spirit of a nation confident that it’s ready to stand on its own. Jean-Baptiste represents the conflicted passions of the French. Eliane’s conservative exterior obscures her own passion, which becomes evident when Jean-Baptiste enters her life for a brief romance. When he refuses to commit to Eliane, instead wishing to continue exploring the world, their relationship ends. But circumstance brings them together again when Jean-Baptiste meets Camille, not knowing that she is Eliane’s daughter. Entwined with the social changes brewing across Indochina, these relationships lead to trauma and conflict.
On the surface, this is more of a personal story than a sweeping epic of geopolitical change, and its sketching of characters and their motivations is not entirely satisfying. We learn far too little about what’s going on in Camille’s mind and how she is transformed from obedient daughter to raging revolutionary. Jean-Baptiste pronounces that he must have freedom when he rejects Eliane, but he shows no such footloose spirit once he’s with Camille. We never know why. However, when the personal relationships are viewed as symbolic of the larger forces at play in Vietnam, these details are less of a concern, as it all makes tragic sense.
This is a visually beautiful film, with spectacular vistas of Eliane’s rubber plantation, the Vietnamese countryside, and the beautiful coastline dotted with dozens of tiny islands jutting sharply out of the sea. Indochine benefits from a strong, cool performance by Deneuve. The film is more haunting than decisive, as nobody is going to end up entirely happy with the way things work out. There’s no stirring conclusion – just a sense of sadness that things couldn’t have ended happier. But that’s the reality of colonial empires that end in bloodshed, and Vietnam is about as strong and horrific an example of that as you can find.
Indochine is haunting and in some ways unsatisfying, but it remains a beautiful and worthwhile film.
