LOVE IN AMBUSH

Australia, 1997, 95 minutes, Colour.
Jacques Perrin, Sigrid Thornton, Gary Sweet, Bernadette Lafonte, Jonathan Schultz, David Clendenning, Grant Piro.
Directed by Carl Schultz.

Love in Ambush is an Australian production set in Indochina. It focuses on Sigrid Thornton as a young woman searching for her brother missing in action. She encounters various French citizens in Cambodia. The film evokes memories of the civil unrest in Indochina, the French dominance, the wars, the Vietnam War. The French characters are led by veteran Jacques Perrin and Bernadette Lafonte.

The film was directed by Carl Schultz who began in Australian television, made interesting cinema features like Blue Fin, Goodbye Paradise, Careful He Might Hear You and Travelling North. He went to the United States for The Seventh Sign and during the 1990s made several films there, most prominently working in television in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

The film is an evocation of the past – and an attempt to come to some kind of terms, via romance and drama, with the experience of the west in Indochina.

1.Indochina, Cambodia, Australian presence and interest? Indochina and the past, the 1950s and the war? The Vietnam War? The film as a contribution to coming to terms with this past?

2.Asia, Cambodia, the cities, the countrysides, the colonial mansions? The experience of war? The musical score?

3.The prologue, the desert? The set-up? The contrast – Shelley and Brisbane, her work, her father?

4.Shelley’s journey, the audience experiencing her journey and sharing the issues? The nightmares, the snake? The president? Marriage, life, servants, the baby? The recurring themes? The effects on her? Blame?

5.Pasquale and meeting Shelley, his character in himself, his love, his help? The mansion, work? The Cambodians? The rejection of the past? His connections?

6.Shelley and Eddie Norton? Being followed, the lies, the truth, the atmosphere of intrigue?

7.Eddie Norton and his life, his relationship with women, his work, the contact with Pasquale, helping, the drive? American money?

8.Pasquale and his friendship, the jungle and the meeting? The Khmer woman? The plastic bag? Wounded, carried? The dangers? The car and the escape?

9.The picture of the Khmers, the government, the soldiers, tension? The Khmer leader – and the breaking of the egg, the image of the yolk and the white?

10.Shelley, her brother, the search, the drive in the countryside? The guards, the house? The car and the help? Eddie Norton’s intervention?

11.The information about deserters, the colony, spies?

12.The end, the blend of drama and romance? Leaving Cambodia?