Blog#4: Indochine

The film Indochine illustrates the physical and cultural tension between the French and the Vietnamese present in French Indochina during the 1930s. At its base level, the relationship between the French and the Vietnamese is one of an imperialist nation to one of its colonies. In Vietnam, the French are in a position of superiority over the Vietnamese in which there is a great disparity in the distribution of power. As often happens in regards to people ruled by foreign empires, the colonial Vietnamese grow weary of French oppression, develop a nationalist spirit, and desire independence. The resistance of the nationalist Vietnamese people to the French rulers represents the central conflict portrayed in the film, Indochine.

Eliane is a wealthy, French plantation owner who has an adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille. Eliane is considerably symbolic of the France's presence in Indochina because of her role as a mother to a young, Vietnamese girl. The French treat the Vietnamese people as if they are just a primitive culture that is desperately in need of the help of a civilized European nation. The French act in maternal manner by imposing their culture upon the Vietnamese as if it is something that all good men and women should live by. Eliane raises her adopted daughter in a setting of Western culture and ideals.

On her plantation, Eliane employs many Vietnamese workers. In the same way that the French view the Vietnamese, she treats her workers as if they are subservient and have much to learn from her. As she whips a particular laborer, Eliane states that she does not enjoy punishing them just as a mother does not enjoy punishing her children. Eliane views this punishment as necessary because her workers do not, in her eyes, know the correct way to conduct themselves. Another comparison between Elian and France can be drawn from Eliane's treatment of her laborers as a means for her to create wealth because of France's similar use of its colonies in Southeast Asia.

Despite her mother's wishes for her to marry a Vietnamese boy named Tanh, Camille falls in love with Jean-Baptiste, a French naval officer. Her mother arranges for Jean-Baptiste to be transferred to a distant military outpost out of the reach of Camille, but despite her mother's best efforts, she manages to locate and have a child with him anyway. The contrast of Jean-Baptiste and Tanh is largely representative of the clash of the French and Vietnamese culture during the French colonization of Indochina. Tanh is deeply involved in the communist movement and fight for independance in Vietnam while Jean-Baptiste is a member of the French military that oppresses the Vietnamese people. Camille's son, Etienne, is both French and Vietnamese and symbolizes the culture resulting from French presence in Southeast Asia.

Indochine is told from the perspective of the nationalistic Vietnamese people. The actions of the French are portrayed as oppressive and destructive of the Vietnamese culture. This is evident through Elian's treatment of her laborers and the French military's treatment of the Vietnamese people .The film sympathizes with the cause of the people who resist French colonization and fight for Independence.