The year is 1950 and an English couple, Louise and Michael, have arrived in French-occupied Indochina to cover a story on a French-owned rubber plantation. They are to be the guests of the enigmatic plantation overseer, Daniel, and his beautiful yet difficult daughter Viola, at their elegant, decaying villa amid a tropical jungle. Michael and Louise hope that some time spent working in an exotic location will help reignite the passion in their floundering marriage. Instead they become unwittingly involved in the personal, sexual and political tensions of their hosts. Daniel is desperate to hold onto a way of life no longer possible in a country struggling for independence, bringing him into conflict with not only his daughter but also with his adopted country.
Direction
Pauline Chan's patient, suffocating gaze on collapsing empire.
Acting
Jacqueline McKenzie's Viola—petulant, magnetic, doomed.
Production
The villa itself: a character rotting in real time.
Director
Pauline Chan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot in Vietnam during a brief window of post-Doi M openness to foreign productions, giving the decaying colonial sets an eerie documentary resonance.
Pauline Chan's only feature—she pivoted to documentary after frustration with industry constraints, making this a fascinating single statement on female desire and imperial violence.
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