The possibility that Iraq really might become another Vietnam--and I hope not, but it is looking a little grim at the moment--was a sobering context in which to screen Regis Wargnier's 1992 epic Indochine, starring the icily beautiful Catherine Deneuve (for some reason she reminded me of a thinner version of Senator Hillary Clinton in this role) as the French doyenne of a Vietnamese rubber plantation.
Unfortunately, unlike East-West, which led me to getthe DVD from Netflix, Indochine left me a little cold.
Somehow, this film rang false. The plot, obviously symbolic, became shambolic as it headed into its third hour. Maybe each event really happened, but it just didn't make sense to a puritanical American. The menage-a-trois between Deneuve, her adopted Vietnamese daughter, and her French naval officer lover seemed preposterous. The chases and escapes seemed farfetched. And the enigmatic ending, in Geneva, peculiarly unsatisfying.
Somehow this Franco-Vietnamese romance seemed a little misguided, if not crazy-- l'amour fou. The French like this sort of thing, but it brought out too much of my own Ango-Saxon education and upbringing to enjoy. I couldn't understand why everyone was doing stupid and crazy things all the time.
Plus, the communists, who are the heroes of this picture (was East-West only anti-Stalinist?) come off as cardboard cutouts. Pure heroes, liberating their nation by torching the estates of the mandarins. Surely, the reality must have been more complex.
For a tragic story to work, all sides must have their human side--heroes are not all good, hence the "tragic flaw." Likewise, villians have their good side. But this was too unsubtle to enjoy fully.
Nevertheless, the photography was good. And it is always fun to see a big star like Deneuve in a leading role. But Casablanca it's not.
