Indochine

Rating:
Summary: C'est magnifique!
Review: Visually stunning, gorgeous and breathtaking. It reminded of the first time I saw Dr. Zhivago and I couldn't help but draw attention to the similarities - love triangles (in this case quadrangles); revolution, ideology, sense of time and place, communism, injustice. C'est magnifique!

Rating:
Summary: Everything you could ask for in a movie
Review: this movie will touch all of your senses. emotionally, you get involved in the love story...feeling for everyone involved. Vincent, Linh, and Catherine were just beautiful! This movie opens your eyes to the world of the French and Vietnamese, and its downfall. I recommend this movie to anyone who doesn't mind shedding tears, and wanting to watch a movie over and over again.

Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking and Dramatically Beautiful
Review: Indochine is a masterpiece. Its rich colors and beautifully captured story dazzles the mind and provokes the heart of all its viewers. Poignant and heartbreakingly wonderful it is a must see for anyone who even just "likes" foreign films. It will forever be known as one of the finest movies to have ever been made in french cinematic history. It truly does capture your soul, clinging to you long after you've seen the film.

Rating:
Summary: The best foreign film I have seen!
Review: Simply put this is the best foreign film I have ever seen. The plot is dramatic, the scenes are wonderful, the actors are phenomenal. The story captured me and I love to watch it again and again.

Rating:
Summary: one of the best
Review: Few films touch my mind, heart and soul at once. This one does. It presents strong, multidimensional characters in complex situations, and who change, grow, and cope with challenges and tragedy in sometimes surprising ways. I am stunned to see the reviews that saw the actors as wooden, the directing inconsistent, or the story lacking: they didn't see what I saw, suggesting that different experiences lead to different perceptions. This film can be seen at many levels and with many interpretations: among them, it showed how individuals may support tyranny with the best of intentions, oppression must fail, and change requires sacrifice...love may conquer, but perhaps not as one hopes for individual joy. There were no innocents, no ineffably strong heroes in this film. The characters portrayed people with whom I could relate, and understand, and cry for. Yet all of the central characters had (at least at some point) participated in enforcing oppression, or committed murder for various compelling reasons. It shows that those who accept the call to fight injustice may be compelled to sacrifice their personal happiness if not their lives-- and their motives are not necessarily noble. The film provides insight to the history that led to the Vietnam war, and relevant perspectives for reflecting on present problems of terrorism, cultural imperialism, and political justifications for war. As in life, there is no single correct view, no one correct line of action, only flawed humans, inadequate policies, and political systems dedicated to reinforcing a status quo. And Indochine shows the failures, the struggles and the human drama...will we ever learn from history?

Rating:
Summary: "I can't believe I'm still in Saigon ..."
Review: Catherine Deneuve is about the only reason to not turn "Indochine" off after watching it for only half-an-hour. The movie is slow-moving, but beautifully set and shot. The performances are first-rate, but the editing is scattershot, and it's sometimes too easy to get confused about what's happening on the screen. And the French language is quite tedious if you can't comprehend it (but I would imagine any launguage is similar in this effect). But overall a sprawling, epic achievement.

Catherine Deneuve was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for this 1992 performance, and "Indochine" won the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film ... so it's not all that bad.

Rating:
Summary: Epic Forshadow
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Tries to be too much
Review: Loved the photography and mood, but too many subplots of which many dont contribute or cloud what should be the central theme.
If this movie was limited to the relationship between Jean-Baptiste and Camille it would be perfect.
Flashback? Occupies about two scenes and not relevant to anything.
Boat race symbolism? Not really and doesnt tie to the other elements of the film. Maybe it's a bigger deal in France (though I always thought it was an Oxford-Cambridge thing).
Eliane? We're supposed to see that her blind and oblivious participation in colonialism contributes to its own downfall and the rise of communism. Whoopee. It ties only loosely to the rest of the film; the 'roots of communism' are just as well or better illustrated thru the actions of Jean-Baptiste's navy. I'm sorry, but trying to make her the focus of the film and everything that happens just doesnt work (and her actings kind of flat too). Elianes suitor Guy? Lose that guy (no pun intended) too or change his role, he just gets in the way and confuses things. Ditto to Elianes father.
Bottom line, Eliane needs to be a supporting character to make this film truly work, not a competing central figure.

But a definite recommend to see.

Rating:
Summary: one of the best
Review: Few films touch my mind, heart and soul at once. This one does. It presents strong, multidimensional characters in complex situations, and who change, grow, and cope with challenges and tragedy in sometimes surprising ways. I am stunned to see the reviews that saw the actors as wooden, the directing inconsistent, or the story lacking: they didn't see what I saw, suggesting that different experiences lead to different perceptions. This film can be seen at many levels and with many interpretations: among them, it showed how individuals may support tyranny with the best of intentions, oppression must fail, and change requires sacrifice...love may conquer, but perhaps not as one hopes for individual joy. There were no innocents, no ineffably strong heroes in this film. The characters portrayed people with whom I could relate, and understand, and cry for. Yet all of the central characters had (at least at some point) participated in enforcing oppression, or committed murder for various compelling reasons. It shows that those who accept the call to fight injustice may be compelled to sacrifice their personal happiness if not their lives-- and their motives are not necessarily noble. The film provides insight to the history that led to the Vietnam war, and relevant perspectives for reflecting on present problems of terrorism, cultural imperialism, and political justifications for war. As in life, there is no single correct view, no one correct line of action, only flawed humans, inadequate policies, and political systems dedicated to reinforcing a status quo. And Indochine shows the failures, the struggles and the human drama...will we ever learn from history?

Rating:
Summary: Awful, overacted, messy
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!