Indochine (film)

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Movie
German title Indochine
Original title Indochine
Country of production France
original language French , Vietnamese
Publishing year 1992
length approx. 160 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Regis Wargnier
script Érik Orsenna
Louis Gardel
Catherine Cohen
Régis Wargnier
production Eric Heumann
Jean Labadie
music Patrick Doyle
camera François Catonné
cut Agnès Schwab
Geneviève Winding
occupation

Indochine is a feature film by the French director Régis Wargnier from 1992. The drama is based on an original screenplay by Wargnier, Érik Orsenna , Louis Gardel and Catherine Cohen and was produced by the film studios Paradis Films, La Générale d'Images, Bac Films, Orly Films and Ciné Cinq in collaboration with Canal Plus , among others . The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards in 1993 .

action

Vietnam in the 1930s: After her parents die, little Camille, a former princess, is adopted by the plantation owner Eliane Devries. This increases their holdings in rubber plantations considerably. One day a romance develops between officer Jean-Baptiste Le Guen of the French Navy and Eliane, but it soon comes to an end. But otherwise, times are anything but calm for Eliane. Despite its acceptance by the local population, it was not spared from the unrest against the French occupiers. In a shootout, Camille appears to be seriously injured and passed out. Conscious again, she gazes at Jean-Baptiste, who wanted to provide first aid, which she believes is her savior. She falls in love with him and wants to marry him instead of her fiancé Tanh, to whom she has been promised since childhood. However, she has no idea about the love affair between Jean-Baptiste and Eliane, nor does she sense that he is by no means feeling the same as her. She leaves Eliane for Jean-Baptiste, giving up the luxurious life as the sole heir to one of the largest rubber plantations in Vietnam and joining a communist resistance movement. A love drama begins, which gains in intensity through the popular uprising against the occupiers.

History of origin

Indochine was one of three French films shot in 1992 that dealt with the subject of colonial Vietnam. In the same year was Jean-Jacques Annaud Marguerite Duras ' award-winning novel The Lover of 1984 filmed playing also as Régis Wargnier's film in the 1920s and 1930s. Pierre Schœndœrffer filmed under the title The Battle of Dien Bien Phu with Donald Pleasence in the leading role the decisive battle during the first Indochina War in 1954 between France and the Viet Minh, who fought for a free Vietnam. For his film, Régis Wargnier developed scenarios and dialogues for an original screenplay with the screenwriters Erik Orsenna, Louis Gardel, Catherine Cohen, which describes a love story against the background of the Indochina War. The large-scale production, which at that time brought together the leading actors in France with Catherine Deneuve , Vincent Perez , Jean Yanne and Dominique Blanc , devoured a sum of 40 million  DM (approx. 20.45 million euros). The film was shot on original locations in Vietnam , Malaysia , Lucerne and Lake Geneva in Switzerland and France . The film used Eastman 35mm color film from Kodak and camera equipment from Panavision .

reception

The film drama celebrated its premiere in France on April 15, 1992 and has also been shown in German cinemas since May 14, 1992. In the United States , Indochine opened in cinemas on December 23, 1992 and was able to achieve a profit of 5.7 million US dollars.

The French critics praised Régis Wargnier's work and the large-scale production, which some foreign critics called the French counterpart to Victor Fleming's Gone with the Wind , found international recognition . In addition to the equipment and camera work by François Catonné , the main focus was on the performance of the acting ensemble, especially the leading actress Catherine Deneuve. Her sensitive portrait of the plantation owner Eliane represented the high point of her film career so far, and the actress was again considered for international film awards after Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour - Beauty of the Day (1967) and François Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980). Negative voices attested Wargnier's production had a conventional style and lack of speed.

Reviews

  • “'Indochine' is an ambitious, gorgeous missed opportunity - too slow, too long, too settled. It's not a successful film, and yet there is so much good in it that it may still be worth seeing. ” (Chicago Sun-Times)
  • "Elaborate production that always takes on the romantic frescoes in the format of a ' Doctor Zhivago '". (Cinema)
  • "A melodrama that is convincing due to the actors and the subtle photography, but which is staged too conventionally to convey a differentiated picture of colonial rule." ( Lexicon of international film )
  • “Apparently from 1930 to 1954 without aging a day, Miss Deneuve passes through 'Indochine' more as an observer than as a participant. Her Eliane / Marianne is not the embodiment of the ideals of the French Revolution , but represents the kind of chic that is associated with Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent [...] 'Indochine' offers the audience a lot more history and a more varied view of the Vietnamese Landscape as can be seen in ' The Lover ', Jean-Jacques Annaud's finely laconic film adaptation of the Marguerite Duras novel, which is also set in Vietnam in the 1930s. Yet 'The Lover' evokes subtle truths about colonial relationships that are buried by the epic extravaganza of 'Indochine'. " ( The New York Times )
  • “As a lethargic opium dream of colonial Vietnam, 'Indochine' looks back on French imperialism with a fundamentally numbing intellectual weariness. But unlike the lengthways stretching British mea culpas , this film does not make any apologies for those who seize the culture of a country. The life-weary protagonists of this historical melodrama do not see themselves as oppressors of the Indochinese, but instead feed them the cream of European civilization. " ( The Washington Post )

Remarks

  • The large-scale production was supported by the Center Nationale du Cinema Vietnamien, among others.
  • Indochine has also received financial support from Club des Investisseurs, Sofinergie, Sofinergie 2, Investimage 3, and Cofimage 3.
  • Linh Dan Pham , the actress who played Camille , disappeared from the film industry for seven years after the promising start of her acting career. Linh Dan Pham only resumed her acting career in 2001 and was able to build on the success of Indochine in 2005 with Jacques Audiard's The Wild Beat Of My Heart .

Awards

At the Oscars ceremony on March 29, 1993 in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, Indochine was nominated for two Oscars. While Catherine Deneuve had to admit defeat for Best Actress Emma Thompson ( Reunion in Howards End ), Régis Wargnier's third feature film was awarded the Oscar for best foreign language production of the year. For France it was the 28th nomination in this category and the ninth Oscar in 36 years. The drama had already won the National Board of Review and Golden Globe Awards in that category . When the most important French film award, the César , was awarded, Indochine was the favorite with twelve nominations. The film was the most successful film of the evening with five Césars won, but was defeated in the category of best film by Cyril Collard's AIDS drama Wilde Nights . Among the honored were Catherine Deneuve and Dominique Blanc , who were able to prevail against the competition as best leading and supporting actress. A year later, Indochine was also nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best Non-English Language Production, but had to admit defeat to Chen Kaige's drama Farewell to My Concubine .

Oscar 1993

  • Best foreign language film
  • nominated in the category Best Actress (Catherine Deneuve)

British Academy Film Awards 1994

  • nominated for Best Non-English Language Film

Golden Globe Awards 1993

  • Best foreign language film

César 1993

  • Best Actress (Catherine Deneuve)
  • Best Supporting Actress (Dominique Blanc)
  • Best equipment
  • Best camera
  • Best tone
    • nominated in the categories

Further

Goya 1993

  • Best European film

National Board of Review Awards 1992

  • Best foreign language film

Political Film Society 1994

  • Best Democratic Film
  • nominated in the human rights category

literature

  • Régis Wargnier: Indochine . Ramsay Cinéma, Reflet, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-84041-029-X (French)
  • Christian de Montella: Indochine: roman: d'après le film de Régis Wargnier, écrit par Catherine Cohen, Louis Gardel, Erik Orsenna et Régis Wargnier . Fayard, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-213-02878-8 (French)
  • Phil Powrie: French cinema in the 1990s: continuity and difference: essays . Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 1999, ISBN 0-19-815958-7 (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Indochine . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2006 (PDF; test number: 67 808 DVD).
  2. ↑ Roger Ebert : Indochine. February 5, 1993, accessed January 16, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Indochine. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 16, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Vincent Canby : Deneuve As Symbol Of Colonial Epoch. December 24, 1992, accessed July 24, 2018 .