Original subtitles

Very early in my life it was too late.

At 18 it was already too late.

At 18 I aged.

This aging was brutal.

This aging, I saw it spread over my features one by one.

Instead of being frightened by it, I saw this aging of my face with the same

sort of interest I might have taken, for example, in the reading of a book.

That new face, I kept it.

It's kept the same contours, but its matter is destroyed.

I have a destroyed face.

Let me tell you again.

I'm fifteen and a half.

It's the crossing of a ferry on the Mekong.

Look at me.

I'm 15 and a half.

It's the crossing of the river.

When I go back to Saigon, it's as though I'm on a journey, especially when I

take the bus.

That day, it's the end of the school holidays.

I don't remember which one.

I went to spend it in Sadek with my two brothers, in my mother's tight house

behind the Bush School, in the horror of the Sadek house.

The big pieces are mine.

Why yours?

Because that's the way it is.

I wish you'd die.

Paul, come to bed.

You mustn't be afraid anymore.

Nor of Pierre, nor of anything.

Never again, you hear?

Never again.

He came back?

He's here on the balcony, sleeping on the mat outside.

He doesn't want to go to his room. He's too scared of Pierre.

Me, it's when he's outside that I'm afraid.

I'm afraid he'll leave like that. He'll get lost.

It can happen with that kind of child.

That's not true.

You're not afraid for Paul. You're only afraid for Pierre.

Why is it that you love him so much and not us?

You never... I love all three of my children the same.

That's not true! It's not true!

Answer, why is it that you love him so much and not us?

I don't know why.

to Saigon to ask for Piers' repatriation.

What? I'm sending him back to France. You're happy?

Stole at the open den again.

I can't pay any longer.

It's over.

It's not possible anymore.

You know how to drive?

I already told you.

Oh, I forgot.

So that day, I'm going back to Saigon.

I'm wearing my cavalry shoes and my man's hat.

No woman, no young girl wears a man's fedora in that colony in those days.

No native woman either.

That hat, I never leave it.

I have that.

This hat.

That all by itself makes me whole.

I'm never without it.

So it's the crossing of one of the branches of the Mekong, on the ferry

between Vinlong and Sadak, in the great plains of mud and rice of southern

Indochina, the plain of the birds.

Excuse me, mademoiselle. Do you smoke?

No, thank you.

I'm sorry.

It's so surprising.

A young white girl on a native bus.

I

like

your hat.

It's original.

A man's hat on a young girl.

And you're pretty.

You can do anything you like.

You're who?

I live in Vinlong. Where in Vinlong?

On the river.

Just outside.

The big house with the terraces.

The blue stone one?

Yes.

It's a Chinese house.

I am.

Chinese.

Chinese.

He's from that financial minority that owns all the popular housing of the

colony.

He's back from Paris, where he undertook some business studies.

He's the one who was crossing the Mekong that day towards Saigon.

If you want, I can drive you to Saigon.

Do you know her?

She's the administrator's wife.

Mrs. Stretter.

Anne -Marie.

Do you want one?

Yes, thank you.

Is it true?

The story about the young man who killed himself for her?

Don't know?

Yes, it's true.

On the marketplace at Luang Prabang, the day she left, he was her lover.

doesn't bother you.

I mean in here.

No, not at all.

You're at Tycoon High School?

Yes, but I sleep elsewhere.

At the Liotty boarding house.

You like studying?

Yes, I find it interesting.

What grade are you in?

Eleventh.

And you're?

Seventeen.

And you?

Thirty -two.

And jobless.

And Chinese, what's more?

What's more?

Yes.

You look so beautiful when you say that.

Since my mother's death, my father has lived on his cot. He never leaves his

open pipe, and he nearly doesn't eat anymore.

I never guessed the depth of his fondness.

There it's been ten years that he's taken care of his business like that.

From his bed.

He stares at the river.

You see?

I see.

Yes, I miss Paris.

The parties.

The evenings in Montparnasse.

The cupola.

Do you know the cupola?

I went to France once. It was in the north, near the Belgian border.

I only know here.

The Mekong.

Saigon. You like Saigon?

Yes. I like Saigon.

I like Saigon, too.

Chollon, I've been to before.

Chollon. It's like China.

That's it.

Goodbye.

You got here earlier than usual.

I met someone on the ferry who drove me here.

A Chinaman.

Ellen is the only other white girl in the boarding house.

Ellen, she is immodest.

She doesn't realize.

She walks naked in the dormitory.

She doesn't know that she's very beautiful.

She's innocent, lingering on in youth.

There was a girl. The assistant mistresses found her. She was a

evening. Behind the wall.

Nobody noticed anything.

Who? Alice.

Alice? Who's she going with like that?

Anybody. People walking by.

It's always appealed to me.

What?

To go with men you don't know.

You don't even see them.

Nothing. You'll never know their face.

Do you think we're all like that?

Yes.

The assistant mistresses, too.

Every woman.

Actually, I'd rather be a prostitute than take care of lepers.

What are you talking about again?

That's what everybody says here. They say they want us to study, but it's not

true. They take us into boarding so they can send us to the Lazarus with the

lepers, the plague -stricken, the cholera -ridden.

I'd rather be a prostitute.

They'd be lucky, those men.

on one level shoulder strike.

One.

Two.

It happened very quickly that day. A holiday.

A Thursday.

He came that Thursday afternoon to the boarding house.

He came to wait for her with the big black car.

It's early in the afternoon, the time of the siesta.

It's in Shulong, in the alleyways of Shulong, in the smell of soup, roast

jasmine, dust, charcoal fire, in the smell of the Chinese town.

I didn't choose furniture.

It's my father's work. Young rich Chinese

have mistresses.

And they call this the bachelor's room.

Do you have many mistresses?

Do you like the idea of me having mistresses?

Yes, I do.

So you followed me here, as you would have followed anyone.

I wouldn't know.

I've never followed anyone into a room yet.

I... I'm afraid...

I'm afraid of loving you.

Listen, we'll leave. We'll come back some other time.

Well, I'd rather you didn't love me.

I want you to do as you usually do with other women.

Is that what you want?

Yes.

I know you'll never love me.

I... I don't know.

I don't want you to talk.

He tore the dress off.

He tore the little white cotton underpants off.

And he carried her like that, naked, to the bed.

Once on the bed, fear overcomes him.

He says it's not true, that she's too little, that he can't do such a thing.

So she's the one who does it.

Her eyes closed, she undresses him, button by button,

sleeve by sleeve.

His skin is of a sumptuous softness.

His body is hairless, without any virility at all, other than that

of the sex.

She doesn't look him in the face.

She touches him.

She touches his softness.

I still see the place of distress, shipwrecked, the distempered walls, the

slatted shutters giving unto the furnace, the soiling of the blood.

I remember well.

The room is dark.

It's surrounded by the never -ending glamour of the town, carried away by the

town, by the flow of the town.

My body was in that public noise, this passing by from the outside, exposed.

The sea, I thought.

The immense...

They're dead.

Did it die on you?

No.

Are you sad?

Yes, I guess.

A little.

I don't know.

It's because we've made love during the daytime.

In the dead of the heat.

No.

It's me.

I'm always a little sad.

I'm like my mother.

When I told her I'd be a writer, she shrugged.

She said it's not work. It's a childish idea.

She wants me to do maths, my mother does.

To earn money.

What do you want to write?

Books.

Novels.

About my older brother.

To kill him.

To see him in pain.

To make him die.

About my younger brother. To save him.

And about that?

About my mother's sadness?

About the lack of money? About shame?

I know the bad luck with your mother.

And the tragedy she's lived.

How do you know?

Through the servants.

Through my driver.

You know everything through the servants.

I know about your elder brother too.

I met him in the opium dens along the riverside.

He smokes too much.

Much too much.

The whites don't know how to smoke.

He's an animal.

He scares me.

He steals from my mother to go smoke.

He steals from the servants.

My mother never says anything.

He's her favorite.

Since my father died, there's no money in the house.

My mother lost everything here.

She made all the wrong choices.

So how do you manage?

We do the best we can.

We're shameless.

Do the best we can.

I don't know.

I came because I liked you.

Would you like me if I were poor?

I like you the way you are.

With your money.

too little.

I can't leave my mother and my little brother. Not yet.

I

had

asked him to do it again and again.

To do it to me.

He had done it.

He had done it in the arduousness of blood.

I think he's used to it.

This is what he does in life.

Love. Nothing else.

I'm very lucky.

Obviously, it's as if it were a profession he'd have.

He's on me.

He engulfs himself again.

We stay like that.

Nailed.

Mourning in the... glamour of the town.

You see, you'll remember this afternoon all your life,

even if you've forgotten Michael.

You think I'll remember the room?

Take a good look at it.

Like anywhere?

I found the strength to go against the forbidden with this calm, this

determination.

I succeeded in going all the way to the end of the idea.

How could I have taken so much pleasure for me alone with this unknown man?

My mother, she'd kill me if she finds out the truth.

My brother, he'd kill you.

Imagine, with a China man.

Since I've been little, she tells me that here in the colonies, a girl that

isn't a virgin anymore can no longer find a husband.

Do you think that's true?

Yes.

Your mother's right.

It's no longer possible after that.

That dishonor.

For instance, if I wanted to marry you, well, you would not be allowed.

We can't tolerate the idea of that.

I'm Chinese.

I'm sorry.

Now that you've done that with me, marriage between us would be impossible.

Well, all is for the best, then.

Chinese. I don't like the Chinese very much.

come into your bed?

No. Not now.

I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Don't be bashful. It's a wonderful report.

She's the sole heiress.

And I'm the sole heir.

The date has been set for years.

That's another reason I came back from France.

You love her?

No.

I don't know her.

For us...

Marriages are arranged by the families.

We know that a future together is unthinkable. So we speak of the future

casual manner without any involvement detached.

And the two families got together to hide their wealth away.

It's so much in the customs of ancient or modern China.

We don't think we could do anything any other way.

that if he was poor, it would be terrible.

He'd be much too lazy to work.

It's opium that takes away the strength.

No.

It's wealth that takes his strength away.

He does nothing.

You still love me.

We are lovers.

Every day we go back to the bachelor's room.

We can't stop loving.

This takes place in the sleazy district of Shulun.

Every evening.

Every evening, the little one comes to receive the pleasure that makes one

scream from this dark man.

Now and then, I go back to the house in Sadek, to the horror of the house in

Sadek.

It's an unbearable place.

It's close to death, a place of violence, of pain, of despair, of

I forbid you to slam doors, do you hear me?

Who drove you back from Saigon?

I told you, a friend.

He lives in Vinlong. He offered to drop me off on his way through. He's a

friend, that's all.

Who in Vinlong?

You wouldn't know him.

He just got back from Paris.

A friend. A rich friend.

Not everybody's lucky enough to be poor.

And this?

What's this?

A piece of blue paper.

It's a telegram from the boarding house.

Where did you sleep Tuesday and Wednesday?

Where did I sleep Tuesday and Wednesday?

Not at the boarding house. The fans were out of order.

I slept with my friend from Vinlong. Is that what you want me to say?

Hit her, Mum.

Don't let her get away with it. But it's in this family's dryness, in its

incredible harshness, that I am the most deeply assured of myself, in the

deepest of my essential certainties.

Our common history of ruin and shame, of love and hate, is in my flesh.

Daughter looks like a whore.

I am still in this family.

This is, barring all other places where I live. That was your dress, ma 'am, and

the shoes you bought them for me. I've been wearing them for months.

They're on sale, remember?

Final reductions, Rukatina.

I do it on purpose.

See what estate I'm in because of you.

It's as though it makes you happy.

If you don't trust me anymore, just take me out of the boarding house.

Besides, I'm not the one who has to be all alone all year long in Saigon.

The mother can be very, very happy sometimes.

The time to forget.

That of washing the house may suffice for my mother's happiness.

She plays the piano, she swims, she laughs. And everyone thinks that one can

happy in this gutted house. That suddenly becomes a swamp, a field

river, a ford, a beach.

My respects, madame.

My mother.

My brother Pierre.

And my brother Paul.

On Saturday night, they are busy.

Will you be having a cocktail?

Yes, three Martel Perrier and a bottle of rice wine.

When Sun Yat -sen decreed the republic and my father just sold all his lands to

the Japanese who had already taken over Manchuria.

All the houses, jewels and everything to go down towards the south.

And my mother, she just lie in the road and she can't go on anymore.

The mother and the brothers mustn't know a thing.

It is set by principle.

that he's at my feet, that I'm with him for the money, that I can't love him.

This because he's Chinese, because he's not white.

My brothers devour and don't speak a word to him. I don't speak a word to him

either.

In my family's presence, he ceases to be my lover. He doesn't cease to exist,

but he's nothing to me anymore.

He becomes a burned -out place, an unacceptable scandal, a reason to be

of. That has to be hidden.

So what are we waiting for?

I'd like to have a drink at La Cascade.

We'd like to go to La Cascade to drink and dance.

What makes you laugh?

That I'm dancing with your sister?

I'm sorry you're so badly paired.

Don't pay attention, sir.

He's drunk, that's all.

What? Can't I laugh or what?

Do you want to fight?

Take care, little buddy.

It'll take two of you to do the job.

Oh, no.

A lot more than that.

Four of me.

You have no idea how weak I am.

We should leave.

Forgive us, sir.

Forgive us.

I've not brought my children up well.

I've paid for it.

How much is what we did worth?

In a brothel, how much does it cost to do what you just did to me?

How much do you need?

My mother needs 500 chiastros.

I've got your money.

Thank you, Arthur.

You see, we have to let her go free in the

evening.

Not tell her what time to be in.

We mustn't force her to go on trips with the boarders either.

She's always been a free child.

Otherwise she'd run away.

Even I can't do a thing about that.

She's always worked very well at school, even being so free.

The headmistress accepted because I'm white, and that's what the boarding

house's reputation.

Amongst all the half -castes, there must be a few whites.

She let me live in the boarding house as if it were a hotel.

Other than my French teacher, nobody speaks to me at school.

It's because of you.

That's your imagination.

No.

There have been some complaints from families.

They say I'm a slut who goes to the shady part of town to have her body

by a Chinaman.

It's nothing.

One day you're going to go back to France.

I can't take that.

When are you going back to France?

At the end of the school year.

But it's not sure.

My mother has a lot of difficulty in leaving here.

The stone belonged to my mother.

Take it.

I don't know.

Father.

I

came back to

see you today.

I think you already know...

I've met a French girl.

I admit I'm always with her.

I really can't leave this French girl.

I really love her.

One year.

Please allow us to officially get married.

One year.

One year later, we'll make another plan.

Okay, Dad?

And I said to him that it's too new.

It's too strong.

And I said to him that it is horrible to take you away from my body.

I said to him that he, my father, he should know what it is.

A love like this.

So strong that it'll never happen again in a lifetime.

Never.

I want this marriage with this young girl I've never seen.

He shows no mercy for me.

Chose none for anyone.

And you?

Do you want this marriage?

The question is not of wanting or not wanting.

I'm nothing without my father's will.

He told me.

I'd rather see you dead than know you were with a white girl.

But he's right.

He's right because anyhow I'll leave.

And I have no love for him.

You see?

It's here.

My mother, when I was little, wanted to erect a dam to protect her good growing

land.

She wanted to become rich for us.

She put all the savings left after my father's death into it.

People lied to her.

The land register agent sold her flood lands just to earn that premium.

Saltwater covered everything.

She lost everything, everything.

It took her years to believe that it was possible for people to steal all her

savings and then never acknowledge her again to throw her out.

She would scream she had fits.

People started to say that she was crazy, to not believe what she said

money anymore, to say that she was lying.

We never saw another white person for years.

The whites were ashamed of us.

She had to give everything up. The upper ice paddy, she gave it to the servants.

Along with the bungalow and all the furniture.

We used to sit here with my mother and my little brother.

And we'd watch the sky of Siam.

Over there behind the mountain.

You feel cold?

A little.

That evening I know it.

I know only that.

Later, I will write my mother's life.

How she was killed by the land register agents, robbed by the government

officials.

To write.

That's what I see beyond the moment, in that great desert, under the features of

which I see the extent of my life.

Is she beautiful?

She's rich.

The family chose her also because of that.

She's covered with gold, jade, and diamonds.

Did you ever sleep with a white girl before me?

Why? Here, other than French prostitutes, it's impossible

to have white women.

Totally impossible.

I want you to say it to me once.

You came here so that I give you money.

I came here so that you give me money?

Repeat after me.

I was thinking about money.

Only about money.

From the moment I saw you on the ferry.

I was thinking about money.

And only about money.

From the moment I saw you on the ferry.

You're a whore.

You're a whore.

I don't find that disgusting.

On the contrary.

Without strength.

I want someone who doesn't love.

Do you know what that's worth?

You want to have us believe he just gave it to you for your pretty face?

Why did he give you such a diamond?

Why?

Because he's rich.

Your daughter's whoring.

Take it! Sell it!

See if I care about that ring.

You slept with him. I'm sure of it. Just take a look at her.

She's a disgrace.

What? You've got to do something, Mum. What do you think? Me?

With the China man?

Nothing happened. Nothing.

Not even a kiss.

It smells of Chinese.

You slept with him?

Huh?

My child wouldn't come anymore.

I took a rickshaw.

Did you smoke a lot?

That's all I do.

I have no desire left.

I have no love left.

It's wonderful.

It's as though we'd never met.

As though it left months ago.

When are you getting married?

On the Alexander Duma.

The dwarf.

Look at me.

I'm going to die of love for you.

After your marriage, we'll meet here one time.

Just once.

You remember?

You promised me.

You're also selling the rosewood table?

Yes.

I'm leaving everything.

It's all finished here.

The only thing I'll miss are the metal beds.

In France, the beds are too soft.

What's that hat?

Mom, I've been wearing it for months.

Did I buy that for you?

Who else?

Some days we can make you buy anything we want.

I forgot.

You know, I wasn't like you.

I didn't study as easily as you do.

And I...

I was very serious.

For so long.

Too long.

That's how I lost the feeling of my own pleasure.

He did a really good thing, truly.

Who did a good thing?

Your friend.

Your Chinese friend.

He paid off your brother's debts at the opium den.

He also paid for the trip.

He was wonderful.

Very discreet, too.

I had underestimated him.

I'm sorry about that.

Do you only see him for the money?

Yes.

It was when the boat uttered its first farewell, when the gangway had been

hauled up, and the tugs had started to tow it, to draw it away from the land,

that she had wept.

She'd done it without showing her tears, without showing her mother or her

little brother that she was sad, without showing anything, as was the custom

between them.

He was there.

That was him in the back.

That scarcely visible shape.

That made no movement.

Crushed.

She was leaning on the railing like the first time on the ferry.

She knew he was watching her.

She was watching him too.

She couldn't see him anymore, but she still looked towards the shape of the

black car.

In the end, she didn't see it anymore.

The harbor had faded away, and then the land.

One night, during the crossing of the Indian Ocean, in the main room on the

deck, there had been a sunburst of a waltz by Chopin.

There wasn't a breath of wind, and that night, the music had spread all over the

black liner, like an injunction from heaven, related to something unknown,

an order from God.

whose meaning was inscrutable.

She had wept because she had thought of that man from Shulong.

her lover.

And suddenly she wasn't sure of not having loved him with a love she hadn't

because it had lost itself in the story like water in the sand and that she was

rediscovering it now in this moment of music flung across the sea.

Years after the war, after the marriages, the children, the divorces,

he had come to Paris with his wife.

He had phoned her.

He was intimidated.

His voice trembled.

And with the trembling, it had found the accent of China again.

He knew she'd begun writing books.

He had also heard about the younger brother's death.

He had been sad for her.

And then he had known what to tell her.

And then he told her.

He had told her that it was as before.

That he still loved her.

That he would never stop loving her.

That he would love her until his death.