Blog 4

The movie, Indochine, shows the relationship between the communist and nationalist Vietnamese and the French. The film follows a wealthy French woman named Eliane Devries and people in her life. She is an affluent woman that spends her time with other wealthy upperclassman and overseeing the operations of her land and its workers.
Eliane is the embodiment of the French power and their rule over the Vietnamese people. She treats her workers like she would her children when they have strayed from their designated paths. She thinks of the workers as if they are her children that need compassion and discipline, but she also treats them as workers by whipping and ordering them to do what she wants them to do. Another example of the French influence is how all of the workers is how they all learned French so they could communicate with their bosses, like Eliane. The French also showed their supiriority and power when they did things like shoot a prisoner while he was running away. He was shot dead for running away and nobody around did anything or acted surprised; they just accepted it.
A symbol of the Vietnamese rise to power and the insecurity of the French is the relationship between Jean-Baptiste and Elaine and Camile. He originally involved with Elaine and they had a relationship until he left, then he falls in love with Camile, Elaine's adopted daughter. The shift in power from Elaine to Camile with Jean-Baptiste is very similar to the change of power from the French to the Vietnamese. Elaine gets Jean-Baptiste transferred to a remote French outpost because she still had feelings for him and she knew that Camile would be irresistible to him and he would eventually fall for him.