TODAY "INDOCHINE": TOMORROW THE WORLD

Indochine, the movie, has been accused of being both a soap opera and an allegory. Yet I find it so seductive that I’m having a hard time to make myself send the DVD back to Netflix. The soap opera part is easy to see -- tragic love affairs, demon power mongers, a shadowy father, and the fabulous clothing of Catharine Deneuve. Since she is one of the models for “Marianne,” the sculptured woman who portrays France (replacing Brigitte Bardot), simply casting her makes soap opera into allegory. Adding gorgeous scenery in an exotic place pushes another seductive element. But the brilliance of the movie is blending common elements (as an excellent French cook might) into something uniquely transcendent.

Just the foggy morning of a day’s work in a rubber plantation is poetry, even without the wounded trees. Red-sailed junks entering the dramatic harbors of drowned mountains in North Vietnam are memorable without speculating on their labyrinthine qualities. It took me a while to realize that the square “red flags” I saw everywhere were really rubber curing and drying on racks. Chino-Indo faces of the aged, the hurt, the starved -- like ivory carvings -- everywhere begged for a better life.

We already know how it has turned out. Huge upheaval, catastrophic consequences in France and then the US who insisted on repeating the whole mess. It occurs to me that I’m repeatedly drawn to the ebbing of empire: “The Jewel in the Crown,” “Out of India,” even “The Lover.” It’s easy to understand why: I’ve been a witness to the ebbing of empire (the US government) here in Montana where the tribes are just beginning to understand what it means to have freedom: obligation, often loss and suffering, the constant renegotiation of relationships. This is the stuff of stories. There really is no movie yet that shows this in the fabulous poetic way of the movies of empire that I love. “Dances with Wolves” was a period too far back.

I don’t believe the US quite understands that it’s happened. There was no violent war, unless you count AIM. Maybe the tribes don’t either. Jim Welch’s “Fool’s Crow” is a 19th century story about being crushed by empire, but where is the other side of the equation, the quieter revolution of emerging into the larger world on their own terms: the world represented by Etienne, who is created by the story -- a blend of French and Indochinese. Maybe the NA story isn’t far enough in the past for it to be realized and expressed, but Vietnam is recent. Maybe the political insistence that an Indian write the story and that white people be villains prevents more subtle interpretations and fair portrayals of the yearning anguish of those Euros who found shelter and home on reservations, but who have been forced to leave in a petite re-enactment of the displacement of the indigenous peoples.

Maybe NA stories are lost under the continuing dominance of the stories of the blacks in this country, so vividly dyadic and therefore more dramatic. Black stories are more individual, and there are more of them, and the media features them enough that maybe they are more humanly interpretable, as opposed to the tribal histories of Native Americans. It’s hard to establish identity and for people who don’t look “Indian” to us without feathers. We are so insistent on seeing the world as individuals, which is not the indigenous way. Those whose unique ecology-based ways were disturbed first by their displacement to “wastelands” and second by the Hollywoodized dominance of psuedo-plains Indian stereotypes have lost what the commodifiers call “branding.” (They mean like toothpaste, not like cows.) I’m interested in the rising tide of “black/hispanic Indians” as Central and South Americans move northward, some of them carrying undisturbed old languages and ways. I wonder how much of the anxiety about immigrants comes from this.

But back to home. Now that I have Bob Scriver’s biography out of the way, my next goal -- a far more difficult one -- will be to try to capture the breaking up of empire right here on the east front of the Rockies. The original power-mongers are pretty much gone now, but the consequences of their actions -- not least the tendency of tribal characters to ape them -- linger on. And the grinding forces of poverty, though eased, are still here.

It’s hard to imagine that this scenery could be made to look more spectacular, but I think there is still plenty of potential for new images -- especially made by people who are here year-round, maybe were born here, and who carry nimble video equipment without the limits of film. No need to repeat the “south of Calgary” summer mountains and prairie, though the digitized skies may remain strong elements. The cottonwood river bottoms have not been explored. Sere, bleached grass rarely features. Snow. Wind. Indian faces. (Incidentally, the Browning schools consistently win speech and drama contests around the state. There may be a potential Indian Catharine Deneuve right now.) The kind of mercantile store that served Browning even into the Sixties and Seventies has not been depicted. Dogs as characters though they are everywhere in reservation life. A sarvisberry patch in frothing bloom -- as bridal as orange blossoms.

Though little echoes of these ideas got into my bio of Bob Scriver, someone (and I will try) needs to make them as panoramic as the land. There is a contemporary critique to make here about the same Empire relationship between prosperity and order -- “Indochine” embodies the force for order in the policeman, Jean Yanne, whose attraction is that of Cheney: a powerful man who does not mind breaking small people in order to maintain the economy. He does it efficiently, without making a fuss, serving “France/Deneuve”, becoming a stone against which others can break, understanding quite well that he is actively creating Communists to resist and destroy him. This movie depicts Guy with admirable restraint, rather like Merrick in “The Jewel in the Crown.” In real life it would be hard for me to identify such a man. The oppressors, since the end of the Indian Wars and the Cavalry, have been more a pack of coyotes than grizzlies.

I’ve tried suggesting to people here that constant disorder prevents general prosperity and keeps money rolling into the pockets of the few: the alcohol purveyors, the casinoes, the major ranchers and concessionaires, the lawyers. They don’t like this idea -- don’t see it. They are attracted to the big shots, want to be like them, believe there is some secret knowledge or connection that they have. There are even some who are flattered by being asked to work for the FBI.

The series-format television series have been moving towards this: “Into the West” and “Bury My Heart...” both had the pattern in them, but softened -- made palatable and even sentimental. One of the fascinations of “Indochine” is the tough-mindedness of “Eliane.” She doesn’t take the easy way out, nor does her adopted Vietnamese daughter or even the French sailor. The goofy sexiness of Yvette means nothing to her. Her way is dignity.

I’m thinking of a plot more like, say, the shooting of “Heaven’s Gate” on both sides of Glacier Park, which turned out to be a kind of “heart of darkness” experience for a lot of extras. A director is always a tyrant, hopefully a gifted one. But the gifts don’t just come from passion: they come from a broad education in the history and culture of human beings, a grasp of theory and aesthetic principles. I’m not sure enough Native Americans are getting these last things.

Still, we seem to be moving away from the “Great American Novel” towards the “Great Global Narrative.” I’ve been fascinated by the sequence of books about how great civilizations are created and what makes them finally fail. Most recently “A Farewell to Alms” by Gregory Clark is sharply reviewed in the NY Review of Books. (You can find it on the Powells’ booksite.) What we are looking at now is not the death of empires or nations but rather the death of human beings as we know them. Maybe no novel or movie can really encompass that, despite all the apocalypses that try.

Since we don’t really know how much time is left (and anyway, I’m getting old) I guess I’ll watch “Indochine” at least once more. Maybe twice.