Rating: 
Summary: Romance, drama, tragedy, and exotic beauty
Review: This exquisite film places romance, danger, emotional and political turmoil on a backdrop of beautiful photography. Catherine Deneuve plays a perfect role as Eliane, a single, powerful woman in charge of a plantation in what was then Indochina, and soon to be Viet Nam. The orphaned Asian baby girl she adopts grows up to fall in love with Jean Babtiste, the same man that Eliane is having an affair with. This point feels somewhat like a soap opera, but the movie quickly launches into so much more, with many plot elements that lead daughter Camille on a desperate and dangerous journey to follow Jean to a remote mlitary outpost. When Camille witnesses an atrocity against a friend, she kills a Frenchman, and she and Jean become refugees. They are caught in the events of political chaos, surrounded by an uprising against the French, and surging Communism. Matters are complicated when Camille gives birth, and the family is torn asunder. I won't give away any more of the plot, but there is much more that happens. The movie's history lesson, as well as its emotional charge and colorful scenery in that Asian land, kept me glued to the screen.
Rating: 
Summary: Sweeping epic that focuses on romance, not revolution
Review: This 1992 film won an Academy Award for best foreign language film. Starring Catherine Deneuve, it's a sweeping epic set in French Indochina in the late 1930s. The French were colonialists without apology. They felt they were bringing civilization to the country. We all know what happened later, but the characters don't. This made me have the persistent feeling throughout about how I knew the style of life displayed in the film would all be swept away. Catherine Deneuve was almost fifty years old when the film was made and her maturity just adds to her beauty and elegance. She's cast as a wealthy rubber plantation owner who has never married but has adopted a lovely young Vietnamese girl she raises as her daughter with all the advantages of a French education and beautiful clothes. Both she and her daughter, played by Linh Dan Pham, fall in love with the same French navel officer, 30-year old Vincent Perez. And when the lovely Catherine has him sent to a remote outpost, her daughter follows him. There's political upheaval in the air and soon the daughter and the naval officer are on the run. Eventually they become revolutionaries. There's much tragedy. And a child who is left to be raised by his grandmother. It's a good story, well told. But it focuses on the romance instead of the revolution. This makes it a little too sugar coated for my taste although the acting is excellent and the screenplay engaging. It did hold my interest throughout the 158 minutes, however, and gave me a picture of what Vietnam must have been like for the French. They lived a fairytale existence in the lap of luxury while all around them people were being exploited and worked to death. I enjoyed the film even though it lacked the bite and emotional engagement that I would have preferred.
Rating:
Summary: One of my 100 best of all time
Review: La Deneuve at her best (she made her first film at the tender age of 13) which is very good indeed. Elegant and eloquent examination of the futility and brutality of imperialism on every level of consciousness: global, local, and most revealingly, personal. No one reveals that peculiarly feminine expression of depravity with as much dexterity, rigor, and precision as Deneuve.
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Summary: Haunting film....
Review: 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.
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Summary: Foreshadows the American failure in Vietnam
Review: 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.
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Summary: An astonishing epic film...
Review: Indochine is a tragic love story of historic and epic proportions that is set in the 1930s French colonies of Indochina where Eliane (Catherine Deneuve) adopts Camille (Linh Dan Pham) who lost her parents in an airplane accident as a five year old girl. This adoption increases Eliane's financial power as her family becomes one of the prime natural rubber producers in Indochina. Through Eliane's assets she can afford to buy art and other expensive luxuries, and at an auction in Saigon she meets Jean-Baptiste (Vincent Perez). They become secret lovers, but are discovered by Eliane's father who is afraid of loosing his daughter. The father attempts to pay Jean-Baptiste to avoid Eliane, however, it does not work. Nonetheless, their relationship ends and through an accident Jean-Baptiste meets Camille who falls in love with him. Consequently, Jean-Baptiste is sent to a remote location to serve the French Navy, but the love between Camille and Jean-Baptiste is stronger than any distance.
Wargnier displays an astonishing epic film where the historical socioeconomic status of the people of Indochina is examined through a few characters. These characters put forward a brilliant performance as they display both strengths and weaknesses that distinguish their class and role in society. The location chosen for many of the scenes is purely breathtaking as these scenes offer multiple views of the beautiful Indochina. Wargnier grabs the French colonialism within the moment and depicts a strong visual experience that many will not forget for some time as it provides an excellent cinematic experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful, overacted, messy
Review: I wish I could find something good about this film but helas...I'm a true passionate about Vietnam but this film is one of the worst ever made about it. I really envy non french-speakers who may then not be affected by the terrible acting (but the text is basically awful so the actors may not be totally responsible). This film is discontinued, the storyline is either too slow or too fast, no identification with the characters is possible, the actors seem to 'recitate' their part with no emotion (Deneuve plays 'Deneuve' and Vincent Perez can be good-looking he truly has no talent). Everything happens abruptly with no real sense. We don't see that much of the Vietnam either and these bits of history do nothing for the film. Reality is far more complex than the 'nasty French and the nice Vietnamese'. This is a very black and white approach.
Bits of this and bits of that, I find hard to understand how this film got an award for the best foreign film. My advice would be: borrow it from someone you know before you actually buy it.
I certainly will recommend 'The Lover' inspired by Marguerite Duras'novel of the same name as well as the films like 'Cyclo' or 'the smell of the green papaya'. A different aspect of the Vietnam but far more interesting and so much more beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful sophistication
Review: Catherine Deneueve returns to bring class to the movies! This time, she plays a French colonialist in Vietnam who is in love with a man who has an affair with her adopted daughter. The film covers many social and political questions that are still hot topics today! A very relevant film with powerhouse performances by great actors. Another great film by the progressive French!
Rating:
Summary: The past history of the Vietnam war
Review: In 1930 Indochina was a member of the French Union, ruled by an imperialistic government. Eliane Devries (Catherine Deneuve) and her father own one of the biggest rubber plantations in Lang Sai. They belong to the country's elite, befriend the prince N'Guyen, and are the only europeans that the mandarin welcomes. Eliane considers herself as "asian" but her lifestyle is strictly occidental. Her greates virtue is her love for her adoped daughter Camille (Linh Dan Pham). Casual liaisons and an opium-addiction are among her vices. They live comfortably, the work is done by coolies. The slave-trade flourishes and Eliane has no inhibitions to undertake an occasional flogging herself. Jean-Baptiste (Vincent Perez), a freedom-loving french officer feels hampered in Saigon. Once he sets the ship of opium-smuggles on fire and observes with horror how the crew is burnt to death. Eliane seduces him in an opium-den. He is outraged when her father tries to dispose of him with a check. The subjugated inhabitants revolt and even in France many people sympathize with their struggle for political independence. The mandarin is assassinated, Eliane's plantation set on fire. Her coolies go on strike, her servants desert her. During the ensuing massacre Camille gets caught in the front line but Jean-Baptiste saves her life and the impressionable young girl falls instantly in love with him. Eliane is appalled and brings her influence to bear to transfer him to Dragon Island, the most frightening corner of the country, ruled by depraved officers, the center of the slave-trade. Tanh, Camille's boyfriend, has become a communist after studying in France, and his wealthy mother and Eliane try to engineer their marriage. But Camille escapes with his help and crosses the country in search of Jean-Baptiste. She befriends a family of farm-workers who hope to find rice and work on Dragon Island where labor is recruited for the plantations, or so they are told. The "human merchandise" is weighed out, palpated, and buyers look in their mouth under the eyes of corrupt french officers, Jean-Baptiste among them. When Camille witnesses how workers who refuse to be separated from their families are jammed in vices she flies into a rage and shoots the chief-officer. She and Jean-Baptiste escape, but inspector Castellani (Eliane's rebuffed admirer) breathes vengeance. The lover's flight is successful at first: Than and his adherents hide them in a secret valley. Later they join a touring company where Camille gives birth to their son Etienne. The fame of the lovers grows until they become legendary. but Castellani's hunt becomes more and more obsessive and finally he traces them down. Camille's only chance to survive would be to join the communist party - better red than dead. Jean-Baptiste surrenders to the court and commits his son to Eliane's care. He is liquidated under unsettled circumstance. Five years later the "Front National" (leftist party) opened the prison camps and Eliane finds her daughter - only to lose her again: Camille has been re-educated, brain-washed to the point of abandoning her son...From 1940 to 1945 Indochina was under Japanese Occupation, later France lost the colonial war against the communist Vietmin and recognized the country's independece in 1046. During the conferece of Geneva Indochina disintegrated into Laos, Cambodia, North and South-Vietnam. Eliane takes Etienne to Geneva where he hopes to meet his mother, a member of the communist delegation. But no miracle happens: mother and son do not recognize each other... If your view of the Vietnam war is colored by THE GREEN BERETS then INDOCHINE will enlighten you: They preferred communism to the knout. The film is more than a splendid sheet of pictures, one really cares for the fate of the protagonists. The performances are flawless; the actors get into the spirit of this era. Neither the violence nor the sex are particularly graphic, but there are some stomach-turning moments when Perez saves Linh Dan Pham of dying with thirst by spitting in her mouth (!) or when he is shot with his baby in his arms. But those snapshots of misery only emphasize the film's honorable intentions. Winner of the best foreign film oscar in 1992!
Rating:
Summary: Background to history
Review: If this film didn't do anything else, it updates Americans on the background history in French Indochina up to the time when the United States decided to try its hand in pushing the Communists back and regaining control of Vietnam. It is a great help in understanding how the U.S. got there and why we weren't anymore successful than France was in subduing the Communist insuragency. Besides this the viewer gets a wonderful film, well acted by Cantherine Deneuve, getting better all the time, and Vincent Perez as well a large group of other well known French and Vietnamese actors. Wonderful film, good acting, great intriguing story. What more do you want from a film.
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