“A Dangerous Fascination” – Indochine

In Phantasmatic Indochina, Panivong Norindr, makes a valid point when proffering that Wargnier’s film “representation of Indochina exerts a dangerous fascination precisely because it brings visual pleasure” (138). Marouf Hasian, Jr. and Helene A. Shugart, in “Melancholic Nostalgia, Collective memories, and the Cinematic Representations of Nationalistic Identities in Indochine”, note that Norindr “argued’ that the film’s “assemblage” was a “discursive construction that supported financial and political ambitions” (330). In other words, it is “his contention that Indochine uses the frame of a “stormy love affair” to lament France’s loss of “the eastern part of the Indochinese peninsula” (Hasian, Jr. and Shugart 330). Yet, the professors contend that the film’s complexities lie in the character’s interrelationship. For example, Eliane Devries adoption of Camille is symbolic of the colonization of Indochina. The rift that develops between the women underscores the ‘estrangement’ of France and Indochina.
However, Norindr inappropriately assumes that the audience digests the imagery “without questioning or subverting any preconceived ideas about French colonial rule in Southeast Asia” (138). Perhaps, the viewer will not come to the assumption that Etienne is the "symbolic future of the merger between benevolent colonial France and ancient, authentic Indochina overlayed with a veneer of communism” (Hasian, Jr. and Shugart 341), but he/she can easily understand that Camille’s acceptance of Eliane’s western lifestyle is not unlike the Indochinese acceptance of the benefits provided by colonization. This is exemplified by Shen’s concern about the sale of the plantation, “Satait and Kim and me, where go we?”
Undoubtedly, Régis Wargnier “displays...beautiful images”, many of which are “exotic” (Norindr 139), but it cannot be concluded that this is the ‘mere’ essence of the film. It can be considered that the viewer, just as Camille, walked through the “gently moving countryside...the scenery entered [the] body through [his/her] eyes like blood…Now [he/she] has Indochina inside” (Indochine).