From Indochine to Contemporary Voices: Tracing Vietnamese Representation in

Francophone cinema

On 7 May 2024, Vietnam commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Điện Biên Phủ Victory,

a pivotal event symbolising the culmination of French colonial rule. This milestone not only

prompts a reevaluation of Vietnam's colonial past but also invites a critical examination of its

representations within French culture. A prime example is Régis Wargnier's French canonical

film Indochine (1991), which offers a nuanced portrayal of colonial dynamics and their

ramifications on Vietnamese society. Scholarly discourse surrounding Indochine has

extensively addressed notions of colonial mentality and the construction via memory of

Vietnam as uncivilized, critiquing how they perpetuate narratives that justify colonial

domination (Norindr 19961 and Murray 20022). More recent developments in Francophone

Post-Colonial Studies provide the opportunity to reassess French-Vietnamese colonial power

dynamics in Indochine through a contemporary scholarly lens, foregrounding questions of

agency, resistance, and cultural resilience among colonised populations. To do this, this

paper will re-read Indochine alongside the post-film trajectory of Vietnamese diasporic

actress Phạm Linh Đan, whose role as Camilla in the 1991 film serves as an emblematic

representation of Vietnamese women in French cinema. Crucially, Phạm Linh Đan has

subsequently had notable success as both an actress and filmmaker. By tracing her career

and contributions, this research probes the evolving dynamics of contemporary cultural

production within an increasingly globalised landscape, exploring the enduring post-colonial

links between Vietnam and France.

1
Norindr, P. (1997). Phantasmatic Indochina: French Colonial Ideology in Architecture, Film, and Literature.
Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822379799
2
Murray, A. (2002). Women, Nostalgia, Memory: “Chocolat”, “Outremer”, and “Indochine.” Research in African
Literatures, 33(2), 235–244. https://doi.org/10.1353/ral.2002.0053
Trang T. Nguyen is a first-year PhD student in French Studies at The University of Manchester.

Prior to her PhD, she completed her Master's degree in Intercultural Communication at The

University of Manchester. Her current research project investigates the representation of

Vietnamese women in French, Vietnamese and American cinema, focusing especially on

Vietnamese diaspora.