Norindr on Indochine

Reel Whirled Peas



Panivong Norindr writes:
"Critical and popular acclaim notwithstanding, Wargnier’s representation of Indochina exerts a dangerous fascination precisely because it brings visual pleasure without questioning or subverting any preconceived ideas about French colonial rule in Southeast Asia. Indochine merely displays beautiful images and should only be remembered as a symptom of the current French fad for things exotic."
I agree with Dr. Norindr’s criticism of the film.
It is a beautifully photographed film. The long shots of the Tomkin islands, the image of the workers heading out in the early morning mist to tap the trees and collect the rubber sap, and the mountains reaching into low-lying clouds are all part of the almost brutal visual majesty. The look of the era – the clothes, the cars, and especially the beautifully appointed home of Eliane – provided an elegant counterpoint to awesome nature. The film reveled in its beauty. One would be hard pressed to find three more beautiful people than Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Perez, and Linh Dan Phan. This film made me want to own 15,000 acres of rubber trees in French Indochina, a guilt-ridden admission.
Other films, Gandhi for instance, got me to pull for the natives in their quest for independence. The British clearly were the bad guys there. All of the Contemporary World readings dealing with colonialism made me figuratively stand up and cheer when the locals had finally overthrown their exploitative masters. I am shamed by the treatment of native peoples by Europeans and Americans. And despite all that, the film made me want to be a benevolent colonizer like Eliane.
Why is that I wonder? It goes beyond the beauty of the time and place. Throughout the film, the actions of the colonizers are juxtaposed with the actions of the rebels. We see oddly maternal Eliane after she has apparently punished a runaway worker, who admits that Eliane is his “mother and my father”. We do not see her actually inflict the punishment. We hear Guy say “we punished” this one, “we executed” that one, and we find out that Guy may have been responsible for killing Jean-Baptiste. But, we do not see the colonial police actually do any of that stuff. We do see Camille murder the evil naval officer, but she then begins her journey toward becoming a communist rebel.
Conversely, the rebels shoot the mandarin. People begin scurrying about, fearful that the communists will kill them all. The rebels go from village to village inciting riots. The communists burn another mandarin to death on a bonfire of his worldly possessions. The film’s director, Regis Wargnier, clearly is drawing a judgment about the parties at conflict. The film has a sort of “back in the good old days before those guys screwed it up” feel about it. If one watched the film without knowing the larger context you might walk away asking “Why were those people revolting anyway?” You get a good dose of fashion history from the film, but ultimately very little useful political history.