Vonia Indochine (1992) Colonial Indochina, the last 25 years. The 1930s. The struggle against European colonialism. French woman adopts Vietnamese girl. Rubber plantation owner with her father. powerful in a time when women usually were the opposite. Magnificent mountains. Spectacular cinematography. Opium. Painted faces in Vietnamese Opera. Cross-cultural love triangle. Between mother, adopted daughter, and forbidden French officer. Éliane, Camille, and Jean-Baptiste. Sides are chosen. Camille shoots a French officer for shooting a Vietnamese family. Jean-Baptiste protects her. Both are hidden with the locals, Communists. Secret River. Gorgeous long shots. They give birth to a son, Étienne. He is sent to live with his grandmother, Éliane. Jean-Baptiste murdered. Powerful scene when Camille is finally released from prison, five years later; Mother and daughter finally reunited, though both have changed dramatically. Especially daughter, who chooses to escape with the Communists to defend her country rather than meet her son. Éliane abandons everything, selling her plantation to Thanh's (young Communist originally engaged to Camille, in the end married her only to aid her escape to go find Jean-Baptiste) mother, moving to France. Fast forward to the present. We see that we have been watching what Éliane has been telling her adopted son, Étienne about his mother. They are on their way to Switzerland, where she is a Vietnamese Communist delegate at the 1954 Geneva Peace Conference. This is his opportunity to finally meet his mother. He instead waits in the lobby for her to recognize him. Of course, she does not. Having left and missed his chance, Étienne unsentimentally says that she, Éliane, is his real mother. Maybe a little long, but only slightly. More likely, pacing could be improved. Notable suspension of disbelief is necessary. Filmed on location in France, Malaysia, and Vietnam, the lush and gorgeous landscapes and overall cinematography. Engaging story. Wonderful music. Powerful performances, especially by matriarch Catherine Deneuve. Quite educational, not many films on Indochina out there, especially not before the Vietnam War. Minh Tam expresses, "I will never understand French love stories. They're all about madness, fury, suffering; similar to our war stories." Add "beauty" to that and you have a perfect film description. Gorgeous epic film, Choosing sides in love and war, French, Vietnamese. Haibun is a prosimetric (written partly in prose and partly in verse) poem in which most commonly one haiku is included after the prose, serving as a climax or epiphany to what came before. #Haibun #PoemReview

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.

armenian_nj I can understand Americans' harsh criticism of this film. This movie is far from Hollywood blockbusters that wash their brains. This is a masterpiece. Who called the play of Deneuve uneven? Actually, she lost the Academy Award to Thompson just because they do not like French actresses in the Academy. Let's recall Adjani in Camille Clodelle. Another masterpiece that lost Oscar to Anglo Saxon actress. Deneuve's performance is not only the Award winning performance, it is a cosmic, universal achievement of humanity. And there are no enough expressions and words to describe the magic of this movie. Let's do not get into the details of historical inconsistencies found by some paranoic personalities. Let's watch the movie through the eyes of French and Vietnamese people and not through the judgemental eyes of some always reprimanding complaners.