Our mission: Respond to the following assessment of Indochine by Panivong Norindr: "Critical and popular acclaim notwithstanding, Wargnier’s representation of Indochina exerts a dangerous fascination precisely because it brings visual pleasure without questioning or subverting any preconceived ideas about French colonial rule in Southeast Asia. Indochine merely displays beautiful images and should only be remembered as a symptom of the current French fad for things exotic." Do you agree? Why or why not?
“Melancholic Nostalgia, Collective Memories, and the Cinematic Representations of Nationalistic Identities in Indochine,” by Marouf Hasian and Helene Shugart, Communications Quarterly, 49 Fall 2001: 329-349; “Filmic Memorials and Colonial Blues: Indochina in Contemporary French Cinema,” by Panivong Norindr, Chapter 6 in Phantasmatic Indochina: French Colonial Ideology in Architecture, Film, and Literature: 131-139; “Review of ‘Indochine’” by Rita Kempley; and “Indochine” by Roger Ebert
I was drawn in by the love story and the beautiful landscapes, to be sure, but shocked and saddened by what French colonialism wrought on the people of Indochine/ Viet Nam. The cash crops of rubber trees cemented the natives’ dependence on the French and turned them into children to the patriarchal settlers. I don’t agree with Norindr who says that the film is too beautiful to be taken seriously. In fact, I think that the film’s beautiful landscapes and scenery make the viewer want to watch, and we subsequently are forced to look within ourselves and at the seemingly benign practice of ‘colonialism’.
I thought it was interesting that the character of Catherine Deneuve, Eliane Devries, confessed that she wanted to be a boy when she grew up. In every scene, whether it is going out on the town or in the fields working or trying to rescue her daughter from the prison camp, Eliane is a model pulled from the runway with her very elegant ensembles, put together with hair and makeup that seem never to show her unease. I think she succeeded in mimicking the typical male colonial behavior, though: she adopted her daughter, and while I’m sure her initial response was well intended, she immersed her in Western-European culture and beliefs and was able to control her until she (Camille) fell in love with Jean-Baptiste. Eliane beat the worker who tried to run away, and he apologizes by essentially saying she is his parent. She was relentless in her bid for the painting with Jean-Baptiste, and although he had the more legitimate reason for wanting it, she ultimately won because that is who she is. A person who collects art and things like the people she has surrounded herself with, and so to her compatriots.
The worst atrocity was realizing that the family we’d come to know with Camille in her travels was hanging near the edge of the water, bound by the necks or shot, like their child. That I knew them made it all the worse and personal, but that is the trick of knowledge. When the horror is more personally felt, it is all the sharper. The shock and horror of this scene awakens the viewer to the fact that this is not the world they thought knew, but something far more heinous, contrasted with the backdrop of green mountains and vast expanse of water, it is a nightmare.
I did however, appreciate the transformation in Jean-Baptiste, from one who would obediently follow orders like a good soldier to one who would become a revolutionary with a woman who shot an important (even though I did not cry when it happened to him) man. He is the most transformed in the film, and I believe Eliane is the least – stubborn to the last, not seeing the implications of her actions, she is free to go on controlling another human in her grandson.
“Melancholic Nostalgia, Collective Memories, and the Cinematic Representations of Nationalistic Identities in Indochine,” by Marouf Hasian and Helene Shugart, Communications Quarterly, 49 Fall 2001: 329-349; “Filmic Memorials and Colonial Blues: Indochina in Contemporary French Cinema,” by Panivong Norindr, Chapter 6 in Phantasmatic Indochina: French Colonial Ideology in Architecture, Film, and Literature: 131-139; “Review of ‘Indochine’” by Rita Kempley; and “Indochine” by Roger Ebert
I was drawn in by the love story and the beautiful landscapes, to be sure, but shocked and saddened by what French colonialism wrought on the people of Indochine/ Viet Nam. The cash crops of rubber trees cemented the natives’ dependence on the French and turned them into children to the patriarchal settlers. I don’t agree with Norindr who says that the film is too beautiful to be taken seriously. In fact, I think that the film’s beautiful landscapes and scenery make the viewer want to watch, and we subsequently are forced to look within ourselves and at the seemingly benign practice of ‘colonialism’.
I thought it was interesting that the character of Catherine Deneuve, Eliane Devries, confessed that she wanted to be a boy when she grew up. In every scene, whether it is going out on the town or in the fields working or trying to rescue her daughter from the prison camp, Eliane is a model pulled from the runway with her very elegant ensembles, put together with hair and makeup that seem never to show her unease. I think she succeeded in mimicking the typical male colonial behavior, though: she adopted her daughter, and while I’m sure her initial response was well intended, she immersed her in Western-European culture and beliefs and was able to control her until she (Camille) fell in love with Jean-Baptiste. Eliane beat the worker who tried to run away, and he apologizes by essentially saying she is his parent. She was relentless in her bid for the painting with Jean-Baptiste, and although he had the more legitimate reason for wanting it, she ultimately won because that is who she is. A person who collects art and things like the people she has surrounded herself with, and so to her compatriots.
The worst atrocity was realizing that the family we’d come to know with Camille in her travels was hanging near the edge of the water, bound by the necks or shot, like their child. That I knew them made it all the worse and personal, but that is the trick of knowledge. When the horror is more personally felt, it is all the sharper. The shock and horror of this scene awakens the viewer to the fact that this is not the world they thought knew, but something far more heinous, contrasted with the backdrop of green mountains and vast expanse of water, it is a nightmare.
I did however, appreciate the transformation in Jean-Baptiste, from one who would obediently follow orders like a good soldier to one who would become a revolutionary with a woman who shot an important (even though I did not cry when it happened to him) man. He is the most transformed in the film, and I believe Eliane is the least – stubborn to the last, not seeing the implications of her actions, she is free to go on controlling another human in her grandson.
Roger Ebert discusses the inconclusive ending that leads up to a final meeting that never takes place. I believe that this points to the power Eliane wields over her grandson, she embodies France here in this film, while Etienne is Viet Nam, and his allegiance to her despite the fact that his birth mother, a hero in most respects, is in the hotel waiting to meet him. Like the dependence that France created for Viet Nam, we see the dependence on Eliane that Etienne feels. Eliane has extended her air of entitlement, lording over all she owns, and they walk off together. She has won again.
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