BACAY, JUSTINE LYRIS T.

DS126

Indochine Movie and characters The movie Indochine is about the last 25 years of French rule in Indochina. This ruling is reflected in the lives of the main characters Eliane and Camille. Eliane is born and raised in Indochina and has never seen France though she is French by birth. Elianes life falls apart together with French colonial rule. She became the conscience of a great European nation. Eliane adopted Camille, and Indochine, after the latters parents were killed in an accident. Camille falls in love with Jean-Baptiste, a French naval officer who had once been Elianes lover. Camille married Tanh, a Vietnamese fellow because of Elianes wish. Jean-Baptiste is sent to Dragon Island, a remote French military base in the north of Vietnam.

Unknown to them, Tanh is a Vietnamese freedom fighter and communist. He helped Camille in finding Jean-Baptiste again. Camille and Jean-Baptiste spent their lives running away from French officers until the latter was imprisoned and found dead in Elianes house in Saigon. Camille was also imprisoned but was freed after the officials lobbied for her freedom. Instead of returning home, she joined the Communists to fight for her country's independence and soon became known as the red princess of the underground community. This left Camille and JeanBaptistes son in the care of Eliane.

After a several years, Camille became a member of the Indochinese committee in Geneva negotiating independence from France. Analysis The movie shows how Vietnam became independent from France. Vietnamese were enslaved during the time it was colonized. This oppression urged the Vietnamese to resort to underground communism to defeat occupying forces. Indochinese troops massacre French officers, and the French government executes their assassins. War between both parties erupted and French officials became aware of the Vietnamese wanting to get the power to rule and political paradigms are being challenged. The movie exposed Vietnams journey to freedom and gave a stand to colonialism and resistance. Vietnam showed us one way to fight freedom from colonizers. The Vietnamese had suffered under French colonial rule for nearly six decades when Japan invaded portions of Vietnam. This made Vietnam partly divided. However, the Vietnamese want to get the sole power to rule its own land. Colonized countries had their own ways to free themselves from colonizers but the Vietnamese community resorted to underground communism. The United States felt that communism might spread in other Asian countries too because Vietnam already started it. US helped France to further strengthen its power and defeat communism in Vietnam through the French military. US eventually acquired power to rule Vietnam and a peaceful agreement in Geneva between both countries provided Vietnam the freedom they have been fighting for decades.

US has been helping Asian countries getting freedom by preparing them in ruling their own lands. The movie made us see history and gave us a lesson that force sometimes do not succeed. We also get freedom without resorting to those and instead a peaceful agreement may be the best option to acquire sovereignty.

Source: Bernstein (2012). Capitalist solutions: a philosophy of american moral dilemmas. Transaction Publishers : New Jersey