Why so much hype?

So much average

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Régis Wargnier's starkly impartial dissection of the declining colonial French Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) in the 1930s, INDOCHINE is a perfervid melodrama that walks a fine line between rational self-examination and exotic exploitation, not to mention it chalked up Oscar's BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM honor in 1993. Catherine Deneuve plays Éliane, a wealthy French spinster and the proprietress of a rubber plantation in Indochina, whose well-off days is thrusted into an imbroglio when she and her Vietnamese adopted daughter Camille (a porcelain-like Linh Dan Pham in her film debut, taking the short end of the stick for some graphic nudity here), both fall in love with a handsome French sailor Jean-Bapiste (Pérez, an optimum dreamboat, smouldering with vigor and ardor), through quirks of fate, Camille kills a French officer when she barely reunites with a demoted Jean-Bapiste in the Dragon Islet, the pair soon starts their fugitive days with a Communist theater troupe, during which Camille bears him a son, Étienne, and their anti-colonial feat turns into a local legend, sparks and fans endemic insurrections against the French dominion, before soon, an eternal separation gains on the star-crossed lovers, and the infant boy is returned to Éliane, who is gnawed by guilt and powerlessness, while Camille is being cooped up in prison, and the next time they meet is years later, yet nothing can be the same again, Camille is no longer the silver-spooned heiress, but a Communist fighter devotes herself to the noble cause of her country's liberation. Sensing the colony's numbered days are pending, Élaine sells the plantation and returns to France with Étienne.Wargnier doesn't pull punches in delineating the atrocity subjected to the downtrodden local paupers by the supercilious colonists, primarily through Camille's eyes during her headstrong pursuance of the man with whom she is smitten through an almost unilateral coup de foudre, driven by a resolution that is blindly impetuous, human beings are weighed and checked, and sold like animals, indeed, Camille's own quagmire is triggered by witnessing heinous murders of innocent people committed by those representing the privileged life as she knows it before, this is that hammer blow dashes her own illusion of the complacency under colonialism, which eventually leads viewers to feel slightly disappointing, that the film is not gutsy enough to brings her perspective into the cynosure.Which doesn't necessarily mean that Éliane's passive, conflicted realization is less impactful, she is the perfect specimen of French gentility and superiority, her slow disintegration with those around her can connect more with occidental audience (it is a French production after all), and Deneuve is superb to look at, not just in her usual enigmatic glamor and appeal (she still has it at the age of 49), but in those more poignant moments too, her Éliane holds sway whenever she goes, whoever she encounters, but there is a cauldron of inarticulate emotions shaping up her wholesome personality (beholding her reaction after receiving a slap in the face), that is what Deneuve is demanded to bring about, an Oscar nomination is quite a feather in her cup. Visually and tonally speaking, Wargnier and his team give them all to recreate the nostalgic grandeur of a bygone era, and ascertain that they put their money where their mouth is, cosseting audience with scrumptious land/sea-scape panning shots and oriental exotica, Patrick Doyle's orotund accompanying score is well conducive to its grand design, all in all, INDOCHINE is a behemoth of epic filmmaking that gingerly keeps cultural misappropriation and political contention at bay, but holds that faded memory in its heart.

Éliane Devries (Catherine Deneuve) adopts her Vietnamese best friends' orphan daughter Camille. She becomes one of the biggest rubber plantation owner combining both properties. Her father keeps a young Vietnamese girlfriend. She has a secret affair with French officer Jean-Baptiste Le Guen. After a dangerous incident, Camille believes that Jean-Baptiste saved her and falls in love with him.This won the Oscar for foreign film and Deneuve was nominated. It's a sprawling melodramatic romantic epic. Despite the Oscar love, I don't completely share the feeling. The epic setting is beautiful. It is grand in scale and personal in scope. I can't really get into Eliane. The most compelling character is Camille although the actress is a newcomer struggling to rise to the occasion. The romance with Jean-Baptiste is the heaviest of melodrama. It's all melodrama and not really to my taste.

This is a strange work but epics even seem to suck all the originality out of interesting cinema as the grand scenes with the grand passions play out.The writer Erik Orsenna is the real deal, a real writer, not a screenwriter yet this story might have been written by any hack.The overall effect like watching an advert for Yves Saint Laurent or Chanel: Miss Deneuve's clothes are lovely; the male lead is too lovely, he is gorgeous; the decor is lovely, the scenery is all lovely and breathtaking; the minor characters are lovely and trusting; and the music is lovely.This generally wearisome loveliness is not helped by, firstly, that everything is too clean and well pressed and secondly, by the monotony of the photography in which everything is lit the same way,it is all equal, there are no shadows in any shot, not even the cabaret. In this regard it is like an advert.Catherine Deneuve can act but here she is a wooden totem, looking lovely in some lovely period clothes and sunglasses, quick change: into another set of lovely flowing clothes.This is Vietnam as a runway (no aircraft) - with Westerners in the key role and slightly wistful that it all ended before next season's collection could be exhibited.

Some of the INDOCHINE comments already posted are so powerful that I was hesitant to offer my own. I am not an authority on the art of cinema, preferring to experience films and then see what I think/feel about them. INDOCHINE is a profoundly beautiful and moving film. I watch it now and then to recalibrate my moral compass.Background: I believe that colonialism's fate was sealed with the invention of movable type. Granted, it seemed unstoppable for a few centuries, but all forms of Manifest Destiny, et. al, like all dogs, eventually have their day. So will those that are currently wallowing in "puerile, self-congratulatory nationalism," to borrow a phrase from Carl Sagan. Philosophically speaking, colonialism, like slavery, is indefensible. What's to like, unless you're the one doing it? True, there are films that celebrate the triumph of colonial powers over lesser beings. Here are three: THE FOUR FEATHERS, THE SAND PEBBLES, sort of, and GUNGA DIN, also sort of. GUNGA DIN, however, imputes more intelligence to the erudite Thugee leader, GURU, than the three loutish British noncoms who fight him to preserve the RAJ. The noble, water-carrying Gunga Din, a sort of human reincarnation of Rin-Tin-Tin, saves the day and gives his life for his beloved leaders. More than often, such films serve patriotic purposes. Whatever works, eh?INDOCHINE is a fine example of cinematic art with a strong message about social justice and the rights, under Natural Law, of all peoples. It is strikingly beautiful. But under all this beauty lay injustice, cruel exploitation and addiction to drugs and sexual appetites. One sees the rot and decay of the French and Mandarin ruling classes. Compared to them, the Communists didn't look half bad. For more on that subject, look up THE NEW CLASS, by Milovan Djilas, in Wikopedia if you don't want to read it.Just as France held fast to her colonies in Indochina like a parasite, colonist/rubber plantation owner Emile fastened on to his daughter, Elaine. In turn, she clung to her beautiful adopted daughter, Camille. The most striking metaphor was the Tango scene, in which mother and daughter danced a grotesque parody of romance. The young naval officer, Jean Baptiste, saw this very clearly. Confronting Elaine with this awful truth got him banished, his naval career in tatters (actually, it's not quite that simple). It also put in motion a tragic set of events that convulsed the lives of all concerned. The love between Camille and Jean Baptiste survived, living on through their infant son, Etienne, who was adopted and raised by Elaine. Every time I watch this remarkable film I feel emotionally drained. Time to watch something light and funny, eh?