The film unforgettable opening which switches back and forth between scenes of a concert at the Hanoi Opera and a platoon's last stand against the Vietminh in the dead of the night, set the tone for the rest of the movie. This is a slow pace melancolic and factual depiction of the fall of the colonial presence in Indochine in the early 50's. Whilst adopting the perpective of french soldiers, the movie never falls into the trap of naive patriotism. Instead, it serves as a tribute to the lost lives of french soldiers, many of which came from the colonies. The soundtrack is composed by Georges Delerue, one of the most famous film composer of this era. He notably composed the score for 'Le Mépris' and in many ways the movie slow and tragic unfolding reminded me of 'Le Mépris' by JL Godard (1963). This is not a film I would recommend to everyone. It is a rare account of a military disaster and of the fall of the french colonial empire: a melancolic movie teinted by regrets. Visually, the movie is splendid, it shows hypnotic battle scenes, sometimes taking place in complete silence like shadow play on the theatre of a hill, only sparsely lit by bright explosions of mortar. The violence is suggested rather than explicitly shown. The movie makes use of beautiful long shot in order to show the breathtaking scenery where the troops await their fate. In that regard the story succeeds in delivering a looming sense of doom as the viewer is increasingly aware that Dien Bien Phu is forming into a deadly trap for the numerous french troups which have become isolated from the world. There are romantic undertones in the showing of men lost in monumental natural setting against which they are powerless, the theatre of french colonisation being swept away by the monsoon, and the Vietminh represented as a swift army of shadows. The movie has flaws, the length is one of them. Another possible issue people may have with it, is the tone which is difficult to pin down: at times the movie feels like a documentary and at times, an introspective epic. Overall, it is better to have some background on french cinema and the Indochine conflict before diving into this one. French films often refuse to deliver a clear message at the end of the movie. This is also the case of this movie and you won't find an obvious moral message here. Instead, the movie is about nuance and seems to pride itself in silence and its ghostly atmosphere. If you liked the movie you would probably also enjoy another of Schoendoerffer's work 'Le crabe Tambour' (1976). If you are rebutted by the weight of an epic war drama, I would recommend watching Verneuil's 'Un singe en Hiver' (1962) which captures the spirit of that era in a completely different setting and more lighthearted mood.

DIEN BIEN PHU 1992This is French director, Pierre Schoendorffer's third film on various battles in Vietnam. Director Schendorffer was an army cameraman at the actual battle of Dien Bien Phu.The French had been battling the Vietminh since they reclaimed Indochina after World War Two. The Communist crowd were not happy with this idea, and started an ever-growing campaign against the French. The French fought back not realizing the drain on men and material that a war weakened France could tolerate. The war raged on till 1954 and the Viet victory at the battle of Diem Bien Phu.The film follows several officers of the French Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment. We follow their exploits during the final month of the battle. The French Government is not willing to expend any more resources. Several thousand troops are soon trapped after the Reds overrun the surrounding hills. Air support can only do so much and the French positions fall one after the other.There is also a minor side plot with an American newspaper man doing a story on the battle. The man, Donald Pleasance, seems to spend most of his time drinking and checking out the local gambling establishments. Said establishments are doing a box office business with wagers on when the French garrison will fall.The look of the film is quite good with excellent use of period detail and weapons involved. The pace of the film though is just too slow, the jumping back and forth between the battle and back area of Hanoi, just does not work.I wanted very much to like this film, as I was impressed with the director's other two Vietnam films, THE 317th PLATOON and THE ANDERSON PLATOON. This one however just does not make the cut.

The battle Of Dien Bien Phu is one of these battles that became quickly forgotten in military history . It is a battle that should never be forgotten . In an attempt to deal a decisive blow to the nationalist Viet Minh during the French Indo-China war the French forces built a base deep in the hills of Indo-China in 1954 hoping to cut off the VM supply lines and to use the base as an anvil where the Viet Minh would be hammered in to submission . With hindsight the plan was doomed to failure since the French were conducting a not altogether unsuccessful strategy of mobile warfare against the nationalists up till this point . The French also underestimated the Vietnamese ability to carry heavy artillery including anti aircraft guns in to the war zone which considering the French base was totally reliant on air supply led to the disaster that saw 2,500 French forces killed in a six week battle , another 11,000 captured of which nearly 80% died in Viet Minh captivity and led to France losing the war , the first time a major industrial power lost to a third world nation and set in motion the build up to the cold war confrontation that saw 58,000 Americans and 2,000,000 Vietnamese die in the better known conflict that started 10 years laterThe French Indo-Chinese conflict isn't one that is often seen on celluloid . I remember in the mid 1980s how popular the American experience Vietnam was in popular Western culture with countless books being published and of course the big Hollywood blockbusters . One of the problems with this is summed up in an interview with the writer/director of DIEN BIEN PHU Piere Schoendoerffer who stated that there that he had a problem getting the budget to portray the battle and you can see his point since French cinema is depending on how you look at it famous or infamous at making small budget existentialist movies rather than Hollywood style blockbusters Make no mistake this is big budget , epic cinema rarely seen in Europe and many of the battle scenes resemble those seen in the Du Long bridge sequence of APOCALYPSE NOW . The director spent the real life battle as a cameraman so he knows what the conditions were like and it shows . For anyone who has visited the Asian continent during monsoon season they'll realise rain doesn't exist in the Western hemisphere only drizzle and Schoendoerffer gets that right . I have no experience of war in general and the battle of Dien Bien in particular but have no reason to doubt that the battle here is anything less than 100 per cent accurate as each hill is over run and the French defenders realise that the outcome is historical defeat There are a couple of points that do irritate . One is the presence of Donald Pleasence who hasn't a lot to do and his miscasting seems to be included to sell the film to an English speaking market . The second is a sequence where the story cuts back to Hanoi ( The fractured storyline keeps cutting back to Dien Bien Phu and Hanoi ) where a concert is taking place and a female violin player plays a solo as the picture cross fades to the night time battlefield which brings an art-house scene where the film certainly didn't require it These are minor flaws in a film that requires to be much better known and it's somewhat sad that so few people have commentated on DIEN BIEN PHU in the English speaking pages of this website . If you like watching war films there's few films showing the horrors of war better . Put this in perspective in ten years of war in Afghanistan it took ten years for NATO to lose 2,000 troops . At Dien Bien Phu the French lost that amount in six weeks

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.