Just perfect...

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

I saw the picture (now, when I am retired) and did read the review of westpenn49. On one side he admit that it is a sad story, on the other side he acclaims that it is a splendid movie. Is this not a "classic" example of perversion? The most cruel is the most orgiastic?I am sorry but this is real weird.Regards,J.P. (Jan) Clifford

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.

Indochine is a gorgeous film in every sense. It keeps the focus on the moment being represented and the story, leaving the interpretation to the viewer. Yes it was a painful coming of age story for French mother and adopted Indochinese daughter, which paralleled the historical/political events of their times, but it wove them together realistically. Although much more subtle and sophisticated, it reminded me of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe - benevolent gentry oblivious to the suffering around them and their contributions to such, etc. I thought the film did a marvelous job I could have used another 15 minutes around Camille and Jean-Baptiste. Although the focus was on the character of Elaine, his tortured character was the most complex and uneven - he ordered the burning of their junk and the almost certain deaths of a man and his son, knowing they may be innocent (but was driven to find out if they survived, and in doing so found out they were in fact guilty), he appears harsh and insensitive to Elaine who he surely loves, he doesn't even know the star struck girl he rescues and risks everything for (as he admits in a previous scene) yet remains devoted to her, at least for their short time together. I interpret him to be symbolizing the French awakening to the suffering and needs of the Indochinese ("save her" he pleads) and the lack of French role. The final assertion by Camille's child to Elaine, still grieving for the loss of her daughter - that she, France, was his mother, not communist Asia, certainly rings true with parents whose children fail to appreciate that many of their successes and lives were underwritten by the efforts and sacrifices of their parents...

Just watched this movie on VHS on a TV. It was not like seeing it for the first time on a large screen in a theater. Watched it in French without subtitle, because I am bilingual. Probably that is helps to like the movie. The plot is a bit stretched, but the historical perspective is very good. It serves as a good educational tool, to understand the reasons behind the defeat of France and after that the USA. The scenery is just incredible. Deneuve is a great actress and the other actors too including even minor supporting actors. It is not an action pack movie with a rapid pace; but the plot is so interesting, it is never boring.