Product Description: Set in french-occupied indochina from the 1930s to the communist revolution 25 years later. Special features: subtitles in english spanish and french production notes interactive menus talent files bonus theatrical trailers scene selections digitally mastered audio & anamorphic video & more. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 06/24/2008 Starring: Catherine Deneuve Run time: 156 minutes Rating: Pg13
Amazon.com: Régis Wargnier's 1992 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film is a bit like watching paint dry, despite its exotic locale and lead performance by the legendary Catherine Deneuve (Belle de Jour, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). Deneuve plays a wealthy French landowner, born and raised in Indochina, from 1930 until 1955, the year of a Communist takeover. The brewing political changes bound to upset her fortune and destiny find an even more personal parallel in her relationship with an adopted daughter (Linh Dan Pham), who grows up and becomes independent. The outline of this scenario sounds pretty good, but the film is flat and unworthy of its star. --Tom Keogh
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Rating: - Youth must win over beauty... the price of colonialism
This movie is exquisite; Catherine Deneuve is so beautiful, her wardrobe so perfect, that it is hard to concentrate at times. When you see her whipping one of her slaves, you cannot fathom such cruelty and beauty together - but that is the cost exacted by colonialism.
When she chooses to use her influence to have Vincent Perez (Jean-Baptiste) sent away, I wanted to scream "no, no, don't do it, can't you see what will happen?" No man will choose a woman of a certain age, no matter how lovely and fascinating, over a young woman who can bear him children. Nature does not allow it.
The loveliest scene is when Jean-Baptiste is baptising their son in the pool; the most horrific the slave market which he witnesses and is supposed to be supporting.
As lovely as the cinematography is, I do wish the movie had been a little bit shorter. It was exhausting.
GDW
Rating: - Falling Short of the Mark
"Indochine" caught my attention for several reasons; Catherine Deneuve, the location, and the Academy Award. American films get a dozen categories along with films from other English-speaking countries and the rest of the world just gets the Best Foreign Language Oscar. Agreed that there are occassional films that get nominated and/or actually win in other categories ("Life is Beautiful") but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. In the category of cinematography, "Indochine" is a real award-winner. Otherwise it is a flim that comes up short on so many levels.
The plot has possibilities but we are left confused at times, bored at times, and disappointed at times. There is a romantic focus that is, in part, well-stated and, in part, virtually unstated. There is a revolution that appears to emerge but only when it is convenient to the plot; otherwise it must be happening elsewhere because ... Read More
Rating: - Magnificent movie
This is definitely one of the best movie Catherine Deneuve made in her very long career. I enjoy watching it time after time.
Rating: - Old-fashioned storytelling on an epic scale
In its day a casualty of the chaos and confusion surrounding the frequently ridiculous entry qualifications for the Best Foreign Film Oscar - many superior films were ruled ineligible and those it was competing against were scarcely representative of the world's best - Indochine may not be great art, but it is an enjoyable example of the kind of old-fashioned good storytelling that Hollywood rarely produces anymore.
Set against the last days of the French occupation of what was to later become Vietnam, it uses the relationship between Catherine Deneuve's French plantation owner and her adopted Vietnamese daughter (Linh Dan Pham) as a mirror for the relationship between France and Vietnam. Like the American South, for the privileged few, the French IndoChina is a fairy tale land built on the exploitation of others, which they excuse as 'paternalism.' But the idyll comes crashing down when the daughter ... Read More
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- Youth must win over beauty... the price of colonialism
- Magnificent movie
- Old-fashioned storytelling on an epic scale
