Indochine () is a 1992 French period drama film set in colonial French Indochina from the 1930s to the 1950s. It is the story of Éliane Devries, a French plantation owner, and of her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille, set against the backdrop of the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement. The screenplay was written by novelist Érik Orsenna, screenwriters Louis Gardel and Catherine Cohen, and director Régis Wargnier. The film stars Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Pérez, Linh Dan Pham, Jean Yanne and Dominique Blanc. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 65th Academy Awards, and Deneuve was nominated for Best Actress. Butterworth in Malaysia was used as a substitute for Saigon, and Éliane Devries' "Lang-Sai" plantation house was actually Crag Hotel in Penang, Malaysia. Some parts were filmed in Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, in George Town, Penang. Principal photography began on 8 April 1991 and concluded on 22 August 1991.
Release
Box office
The film received a total of 3,198,663 cinema-goers in France, making it the 6th most attended film of the year. The film also grossed $5,603,158 in North America.
Critical reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Indochine holds an approval rating of 75%, based on 20 reviews, and an average rating of 6.4/10.
Critics' reviews praised the film's photography and scenery, while citing issues with the plot and character development. Roger Ebert wrote the film "intends to be the French '<nowiki/>Gone with the Wind,' a story of romance and separation, told against the backdrop of a ruinous war". He continued "Indochine<nowiki/>' is an ambitious, gorgeous missed opportunity – too slow, too long, too composed. It is not a successful film, and yet there is so much good in it that perhaps it's worth seeing anyway…The beauty, the photography, the impact of the scenes shot on location in Vietnam, are all striking.“
Rita Kempley of The Washington Post found the transformation of Camille from a naive, pampered innocent to Communist revolutionary to be a compelling plot line, but noted, "The trouble is we never see the fragile teenager undergo this surprising metamorphosis. Director Regis Wargnier seems far more interested in what the white folks are doing back on the plantation". She commented further, "Wargnier, who learned his craft at the elbow of Claude Chabrol, does expose the geographic splendors of Southeast Asia as well as the common sense of its people, whose sly observations lend Indochine<nowiki/>' both energy and levity".
Of the film's metaphorical mother-daughter relationship between Éliane and her adopted Vietnamese daughter Camille, Nick Davis said “Indochine<nowiki/>'s allegorical intentions actually play much better than the specific dramas enacted among its characters", adding "While Eliane-as-Establishment, Jean-Baptiste-as-Rebellious-Lower-Class-Youth, and Camille-as-Uneasy Cultural Mixture seem to follow the historical pattern of France's relationship with Indochina, their interactions only make sense to the extent they are interpreted as solely symbolic figures".
Accolades
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
|-
| 20/20 Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Foreign Language Film
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Academy Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Foreign Language Film
|
|-
| Best Actress
| rowspan="2"| Catherine Deneuve
|
|-
| Awards Circuit Community Awards
| Best Actress in a Leading Role
|
|-
| British Academy Film Awards
| Best Film Not in the English Language
| Eric Heumann and Régis Wargnier
|
|-
| rowspan="12"| César Awards
| Best Film
| rowspan="2"| Régis Wargnier
|
|-
| Best Director
|
|-
| Best Actress
| Catherine Deneuve
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Jean Yanne
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actress
| Dominique Blanc
|
|-
| Most Promising Actress
| Linh Dan Pham
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| François Catonné
|
|-
| Best Costume Design
| Pierre-Yves Gayraud and Gabriella Pescucci
|
|-
| Best Editing
| Geneviève Winding
|
|-
| Best Original Music
| Patrick Doyle
|
|-
| Best Production Design
| Jacques Bufnoir
|
|-
| Best Sound
| Dominique Hennequin and Guillaume Sciama
|
|-
| Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Foreign Language Film
|
|-
| Golden Globe Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Foreign Language Film
|
|-
| Goya Awards
| colspan="2"| Best European Film
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| National Board of Review Awards
| colspan="2"| Top Five Foreign Language Films
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Foreign Language Film
|
|-
| New York Film Critics Circle Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Foreign Language Film
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Political Film Society Awards
| colspan="2"| Democracy
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Human Rights
|
|}
- The film was selected for screening as part of the Cannes Classics section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
See also
- List of submissions to the 65th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of French submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film