Diên Biên Phú

My 2nd viewing of the movie in 1080p quality with slightly better translated English subtitles. The battles scenes are very realistic. I read that the film was made by Pierre Schoenderffer, a former French army cameraman who requested to be dropped on Dien Bien Phu even though the outcome of the battle was pretty much decided, to document the battle for later generations. Unfortunately the films he made during the battle were lost or destroyed, so he made this movie. The film is beautifully shot. The cinematography is amazing. Captivating war drama from start to finish, almost on par with Saving Private Ryan.

The French have done few films about their own Vietnam war. Schoendorffer has done two of them, the 317th Platoon and Dien Bien Phu, the latter about the 1954 battle where the French army was defeated and lost the war. This movie was a sort of answer to Oliver Stone's Platoon and its hand-held cinematography and "realistic" shooting et setting strongly evokes the recent US war movies. However it goes little beyond that (war is dirty, people did their best etc.). It may serves as a useful reminder of this war (it is quite forgotten, even in France) and as a touching tribute to the people who fought this doomed and dubious battle. It's more an interesting attempt than a real success as a movie.

I liked the film and it has a strong message... the war scenes are very well done for the year 92... an excellent script and a guide of striking lines... but two and a half hours was too long... at some point the film became repetitive and boring. The political parts bored me a lot.... Overall well made and interesting. 6/10.

Well... I guess that I really did like this movie in one way.. and in antoher way I really disliked it.

Basically one MAJOR!!! thing is missing in it.. Vietnamse soldiers, Vietmihn to be exact.

We get a good look at them in the end once the french have given up but that is just about it.

You might argue that this aspect of the movie should be true that you are indeed fighting some sort of an "unseen" enemy, but that is simply not true in the case of Dien Bien Phu.

Let me elaborate some what on that point, several forages and attacks were made from the French in futile attempts to roll up and out the enemy (i.e. a lot of close combat and SEEN enemies).

Several human wave attacks were launched against the French (most unsuccesfull though).

Finally the Vietmihn managed to dislodge the French soldiers by basically trenching their way to them, foot by foot, yard by yard.

At some points of the battle is somewhat more resembled a WWI scenario more than jungle combat.

I feel that the movie gave us a fairly good view of the French parts.. but just where the hell did the Viets go?

I saw this movie in East Beirut some years back when I was reluctant to watch war movies. Donald Pleasance makes an English language appearance in a French Language film. And as always is riveting. However the film strikingly reminded me of certain world powers', their colonial aspirations and their consequent outcomes, related to Lebanon and Vietnam. The film unravels how they, the tail end of the Victorian era, French in this case, loose colonies, lost control, and what followed would turn out to be similar. It is interesting that even the coins of both countries were both called piasters, and both had slots in the middle, like much of the Asian coinage still does. The French tried to suppress the national uprising in favor of their own revenues, and later the Americans saw their opportunity, to target practice and sell goods, if to no one else their own GI's. Lyndon Johnson and his tribe started Southland Corp. aka(7-11)after all. Haliburton had a big hand in that conflict as well. This film is worth your while if you can find it. I haven't seen it on Blockbuster online or Netflix.