Indochine is a film about Vietnam’s struggle in trying to find liberation from the hands of the oppressive colonizers from France. Madame Devries represented Mother France in the film, she adopted a native girl whose name is Camille. Madame Devries had a rubber plantation which symbolized the constant sucking of the colony’s resources for the sake of France. A cut had to be done every time you want to harvest rubber from the tree, which symbolizes the constant and forever engraved cut made by the colonizers in Indochine. Camille symbolized a nation whose native roots have been “killed” and was nurtured by the colonizers. The process made her acquire the culture, the habits and the beliefs of her new mother. Even though nurtured in another way, she represented the natives who “owned” their identity as a people. Her eyes were opened, or at least she thought of it that way, by Communism and the need for independence. She even denied Madame Devries’ offer to come back home, which is a symbol of the clinching away of the young nation from the Mother Land. The Navy Lieutenant symbolized those French who despised the system of corruption and oppression in the colony. Camille and the lieutenant had a son whom they named Etienne, who symbolized the birth of a new nation. The breast feeding of Etienne by the different women symbolized the partaking of the people in the upbringing of a new nation. A scene in the film featured Etienne while he was flying a kite, this might very well symbolize new freedom but a freedom which is not pure since the string of cultural colonialism would always hold it down.
Other symbolisms in the movie are: the broken heel of Elaine, which represents the broken footing of France in the colony, it represents that France’s ground in Indochine has been lost in some way; the opium den, represents the disillusionment of the people regarding the situation of the colony; and the wealthy parents of Camille’s Vietnamese husband, who represented the local colonizers who wanted to stay powerful, whose presence strengthens the suppression of the people.
The film Queen Margot is another film which revolves around the dynamism of power struggle. It is about the power struggle between Protestants and Catholics and the inter-family struggle to gain power. It gives us a picture how power transcends the boundaries of beliefs and relationships even families.
The book on hunting and falconry in the film is a significant symbol, falconry and hunting symbolizes the desire to take down opponents for power, but in the end, this desire would take its toll on those who thirst for power. The killing of the boar represented the fight against the barbaric ways used by the brother of Charle to gain power. This might very well be a symbol for the inhumane actions of the Catholics whose beliefs are far from their actual lives. The death of the favorite dog of Charle signified the death of his own struggle for power due to the unintended effects of the action of his family, the underlying reason for it is power itself.
Margot’s character in the film seemed to be a weak one, a character of futile and ineffective actions. However, if we dig deeper, we could see that Margot was the most powerful character in the film, she was the key to the events. She was characterized by loyalty and a strong sense of conscience. The battle between Protestants and Catholics imprisoned her but she was actively doing things to fight the evils embedded in the faces of religion even though she was a “Mary Magdalene,” she would still pass as more moral than the other characters in the film.
The use of sex in the two films is not to arouse the viewers, but rather to symbolize the union of two contrasting ideas embodied by two people. In Indochine, the unity of two different nationalities was symbolized, in Queen Margot, Protestantism and Catholisism were unified. These were brought about by the despise of the characters in the effects brought about by the conflict between the embedded ideologies. The use of sex is not like how it is used in the Philippines, where it is meant to rocket the ticket sales and to make the viewers ask for more.
Queen Margot affected me more since the movie displayed the ways in which people undermine values for the sake of religion, and lying under it all was the hunger for power. This is what’s clearly happening in our society. People tend to undermine more important things since people are drowned by the lure of power. Hunger for power is covered in many masks, meaning that the tools used to gain more and more of it could very well be embedded in the different aspects of society. However, the fall of different institutions and ways of doing things can bring about change, but this change is in no way easy to achieve. We don’t need to be rich, kings or queens to make this change, but the change lies in the hands of the people themselves, in what they believe in, in what they value.
