Alicia I love this movie so much

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

jpclifford 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

kijii In 1992, this work won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, as well as another 9 wins & 10 nominations internationally. This is a beautiful, almost poetic, movie telling a story of the final years of French Indochina through the eyes and narration of the story's protagonist, Eliane (Catherine Deneuve). It starts when Eliane adopts a young Annamese princess, Camille (Linh Dan Pham), when her parents are killed in a plan crash. With this adoption, Eliane and her father inherit a large amount of land, making their rubber plantation one of the largest in French Indochina….The story ends with the adoption of Camille's teenage son (c.1954 when the French give up Indochina). However, the real story of the movie is in those ellipses (above). That is, what transpires between the adoption of little girl, Camille and that of her son as a teenager.Since the story uses this time frame, it makes me wonder if the movie isn't an allegory telling us the story of the constantly changing relationship between France and Indochina during their final 30-some years together as the mother country and colony—the parent and child. The movie is filled with, and constantly evokes, changing 'parent-child' emotions such as love, hate, jealousy, revenge, and redemption. Just as many children are taught and influenced by his parents only rebel against them later, so too, is the relationship between 'Imperial parents' and their 'childlike colonies'---at least to some. In any case, this allegory works well for the telling of this story.Indochine is the kind of French Colonial historical epic that we have so often come to relate to British Colonial epics such as: Lawrence of Arabia, Gandhi, A Passage to India, and The Jewel in the Crown. That is, as we experience these movies, we feel an uneasy relationship lurking between the colonists and their imperial rulers, and we foresee the seeds of independence brewing in front of our eyes until independence is all but an inevitable. Assuming that movie watching is like voyeurism, this is an historic adventure that makes you WANT to be told the story that the movie is telling you. It also fills in some or the historical background and perspective about Southeast Asia before Vietnam.

Armand with past of a land. with fragments of its culture. map of love and duty, choices and memories. a story. charming, powerful, seductive. the virtue - extraordinary cast. art of wise director who gives a novel and wonderful pictures, secrets and romantic run to happiness. it is difficult to define it. it remains only beautiful. and this definition is enough. for discover the joy of a special movie, mixture of cinnamon, honey and salt. only advise - see it ! maybe for one of its ingredients. for flavor of love, for nature, for Catherine Deneuve or for the labyrinth of few existences. for romance. or, for cruel verdict. each way to discover it is perfect. because it remains. a meeting.

Michael Neumann The always cool and elegant Catherine Deneuve plays a cool, elegant plantation owner in French Indochina swept up in changing times while pursuing a beautiful but cruel French naval officer. Things get complicated when the sailor elopes instead with Deneuve's innocent, adapted Vietnamese daughter, and the young lovers embark on a heroic journey across Southeast Asia: the girl is nearly sold into slavery; the Frenchman rescues her and they escape; a revolution breaks out; the couple is separated; a baby is born; so forth and so on.Needless to say the plot is packed with enough melodrama to fuel more than one TV miniseries, which proves to be a saving grace. On a purely emotional level the film is shallow but entertaining, not unlike a classy, subtitled soap opera, with over two full hours of grand passion, exotic scenery, and turbulent history. As Deneuve's native housekeeper says: "I'll never understand French people's love stories; they're nothing but folly, fury, and suffering." Which may well be the perfect endorsement for such an unlikely saga.