Indochine is a French motion picture, directed by Regis Wargnier and released in 1992. It focuses not on the Vietnam War but the final decades of French colonialism in Vietnam. It stars Catherine Deneuve as Eliane Devries, Vincent Perez as Jean-Baptise and Linh Dan Pham as Camille.
Eliane is a rubber plantation owner and a member of the French colonial aristocracy. She adopts a Vietnamese girl named Camille, the orphaned daughter of minor royals, and sends her to be educated in France. Both Eliane and Camille fall in love with Jean-Baptise, a French naval officer. Eliane uses her contacts to have Jean-Baptiste transferred to northern Vietnam, only for Camille to follow him. All three become embroiled in the political turmoil that sweeps Vietnam in the late 1930s and 1940s.
Indochine is perhaps too long and slow for classroom use, however, some specific scenes are worthy of study. They might include comparisons between ‘coolie’ workers on Eliane’s rubber plantation and the decadent lives of the French colonial set in Saigon. A scene showing the French processing and brutalising ‘volunteer’ workers on Dragon Island is also notable.
Indochine concludes with Camille abandoning her son, Etienne, to join the Viet Minh. Eliane and Etienne return to France. The film’s final scenes show Eliane and Etienne travelling to the 1954 Geneva conference, where Camille is reportedly attending as a communist delegate.
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