Set in French Indochina in the 1930s as the Vietnamese begin to rebel against French colonialism. Dramatizes the last years of French rule through the relationship between plantation owner Eliane, French by birth but born and raised in Indochina, and her adopted daughter Camille, an orphaned Annamese princess who becomes a Vietnamese revolutionary and representative at the Geneva Conference after having a child by French officer Jean-Baptiste, Eliane's past lover.