Set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s to 1950s, this 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.
This is a sort of French equivalent of the British Merchant Ivory films that showcases the decline of a colonial influence in the early 1950s tempered with a bit of inter-racial romance. This time it the wealthy "Éliane" (Catherine Deneuve) who owns a large rubber plantation and adopts young local "Camille" (Linh-Dan Pham) whose powerful parents were her friends before her father was assassinated, purportedly by the communist insurgents. The arrival of the handsome young naval officer "Le Guen" (Vincent Perez) sets the cat amongst the pigeons as he takes a shine to the mother whilst the impressionable young daughter takes a liking to him. Now set against the increasingly turbulent environment, the story develops slowly illustrating how this trio must adapt to the increasingly dangerous political and emotional situation that was emerging. This is a little too long and the pace can be glacial at times, but Deneuve exudes a sophisticated plausibility with her character. As local as the locals by birth, but then again, a part of the oppressing ruling class whom the people increasingly wanted rid of. Perez is every inch the handsome and charming sailor who comes along just as both women are experiencing different sorts of vulnerability and the young Linh-Dan Pham also delivers well as her innocent young eyes are opened to the harsher truths of love, her past and her future. The cinematography captures really well the poverty and the luxury, the brightness and the beauty of the community as it emerges into a new phase of self-control and determination. It can be delicate and it can be brutal, and it does demonstrate just how cynically we from the West managed to keep these benign cultures under the thumb for so long.