Indochine

Need a movie recommendation? Indochine is mmmm mmmmm good. The cinematography is outstanding, Catherine Deneuve is beautiful, and Vietnam prior to Dien Bien Phu is something to behold. It left me with some curious questions about colonization. Deneuve's character has lived her whole life in French Indochina, yet is forced "home" when France finally loses possession. I kept thinking, "How sad to love and lose someplace that was never 'yours' to begin with." And I wonder, what makes a place anybody's anyway? Do you have to be the same race as everyone else? Do you have to be born there? Grown up there? Part of the power? Fighting the power? From the locals throwing beer bottles at the college kids where I grew up to the continued global hotspots Northern Ireland and the Middle East, this insistence on owning place sure causes a lot of pain, bloodshed, and death.