VISIT ~ REMEMBER ~ THINK : A Film Review

VISIT ~ REMEMBER ~ THINK

A REVIEW ON A FRENCH FILM

Describe it & why I chose it

THE FILM

Name:  The Sea Wall (Un Barrage contre Le Pacifique was the original title)

Year:     2009   French/Cambodian/Belgian  Coproduction

Cast:    Isabelle Huppert  (famous French actress),

Gaspard Ullielt (Joseph), Astrid Bergès-Frisbey  (Suzanne)

Director:   Rithy Panh

Language:   French

Location:   Cambodia – set in 1931 Indochina

DESCRIPTION

The Sea Wall is about the French colonial empire in southeast Asia, when from 1887 Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos was ruled by France.  It is based on the real life story of Marguerite Duras who was born in French Indochina in 1919 when her parents went there as school teachers to work for the French government in the colony. The film shows that not all French colonialists lived rich luxurious lives and that not all supported the French taking over the  locals land or forcing them to work for the French.

The mother (Ma) was running a small rice plantation because her husband died a long time ago, with her 19 year old son (Joseph) and 16 year old daughter (Suzanne). They didn’t have a lot of money and the French governor would only let her buy land which gets flooded every year by the typhoons. Her crop got ruined every year but she could do nothing about it because of the “blood-sucking proclivities of colonialism, in the tentacles of which she was hopelessly trapped.”  She was determined to give her children a legacy to live on when she died and when a “rich banana” (yellow on the outside and white on the inside) – Monsieur Jo, showed an interest in her daughter she thought the family could be saved.

The film shows the different lives the wealthy French Colonialists lived and the local Khmer, Vietnamese or Laotions.

The French Colonials drove cars, listened to records on a grammaphone, drank champagne, dressed in suits, washed in bowls, got together for parties and weekends at Clubs and the locals were their servants and workers. The locals lived in poverty and were told what to do by the French Colonials. 

Suzanne knew that if she could save her family if her daughter married Monsieur Jo, and so did her mother and brother. Suzanne seduced Monsieur Jo but when he started taking the locals land to make pepper plantations, Suzanne and her family couldn’t stand it. The French and the rich Monsieur Jo treated the locals like animals. Ma got the locals, who liked her and her determination to fight the French, to build a levee bank to protect her crops from the sea. But Monsieur Jo won by getting the French police to burn the locals’ villages and land. Ma, Suzanne and Joseph thought he was just like the French Colonials who exploited the locals to have power and money. Ma, Suzanne and Joseph were on the side of the locals and even the Viet Minh, the Communist group led by Ho Chi Minh who led the revolt against the French called the First Indochina War.  

At the end, Ma dies, Joseph goes to Saigon and makes money taking French Colonials out to hunt tigers, and Suzanne takes over her mother’s fight to keep her land. The very end of the film shows the same land today which is richly cultivated and is still known as “the white woman’s land”.  

WHY I CHOSE THIS FILM

I chose this film because I lived in Vietnam and know Cambodia and Laos and have always wondered what it was like during the French Colonial rule. Although I watched it with English subtitles, it was great to also understand some of the dialogue in French without having to look at the subtitles, like Bonjour, mange, sieze ans, vingt ans, allez, ça va, la mer, je m’appelle, deux enfants, moi aussi et merde!