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| Quiet American, The |
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  (8/10)
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Runtime: 100 |
| Public Rating: 8.36 (11 votes) |
Director: Philip Noyce |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama/Thriller |
Year: 2002 |
| Writer(s): Graham Greene (novel); Christopher Hampton & Robert Schenkkan (s |
| Reviewed by: Le Apprenti |
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The Quiet American joins the ranks of Far From Heaven as “those great movies nobody watched”. Based on the Graham Greene novel of the same name, it is rich in detail, storytelling, acting and direction that audiences can appreciate on the same level as Chicago and The Pianist.
Set in the 1950’s, the story is told through the eyes of Saigon-based London Times journalist Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine). Vietnam is embroiled in a civil war to liberate itself from colonial power France. At the same time, political parties are fighting for leadership of this new independent nation. This also marks the United States’ involvement under the banner of opposing the Communist party in the northern region of Vietnam.
Representing this foreign visitor is Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), an American operative under the guise of an eye surgeon. An idealist man of youth, he steps into Vietnam with an optimistic attitude of ending the civil war because he and his military forces are the right people for the job and they will succeed.
Fowler, being older and cynical, does not care for the war or its repercussions on the country other than the responsibility of covering it for his newspaper. But two things are destined to stir Fowler to action: deducing Pyle’s (and the American forces) true role in the war, and contending with Pyle’s attempts to win the affections of a native girl Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen) – Fowler’s live-in girlfriend.
Director Philip Noyce and screenwriters Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan have done a marvelous job in adapting Greene’s novel. The ideas that the author is addressing are clearly accentuated, chief of which is that he was against the United States’ participation in the Vietnam War. He expounded on their preconceived notions towards the war and the Vietnamese political/military forces: perform a simple squash job of taking down the Communist Party, manipulate the Vietnamese leaders like mere chess pieces to achieve that end, and ‘help’ in revamping the government with an elected leader in power, all of which to be executed with little or no problems.
Greene is not limited to foreign politics in delivering the moral of the story, as Noyce’s direction and the screenwriters’ treatment shows. He also creates a parallelism with domestic affairs by creating an invasion of Fowler’s illicit affair with Phuong by the young, tall good-looking Pyle. Pyle not only treats her well but can also give her a better life than what Fowler has provided. With the help of Phuong’s sister, who does not hide her disapproval of Phuong’s choice to be with Fowler especially when he is still married to a wife in London, Pyle wins her over in the early stages. But he would eventually lose, as would the American forces in the Vietnam War though it is not shown in the film.
The cinematography of Saigon shows two different facets of the same city, both brilliantly captured and are simply breathtaking. On the one facet, it shows a beautiful exotic place full of life and culture, from the French nightclubs to the Vietnamese dance bars. Downtown streets are swarmed with bicycles, automobiles, rickshaws and pedestrians in a hive of activity. Yet, all of these mask the other facet that is the ongoing civil conflicts often speaking their voices via exploding grenades and car-bomb explosions, changing the casual perspective from awe and reverie to fear and horror.
This contrast is vividly reflected through the characters in the story. Fowler, a decent man save for taking a lover while he is still married, has his integrity questioned in a murder case. Not to prove innocence or guilt, but his true motive. Pyle’s idealist attitude, as well as those of the American forces, conceals the motive to manipulate and dictate the course of the Vietnam War. Fowler’s secretary Hinh (Tzi Ma) appears to have ties to a group (or groups) that resent that kind of American influence. Can anyone really trust the new political organization, led by an ambitious general and his entrepreneurial benefactor, that claims to oppose the French and the Communist? The recent Al Pacino quote “Nothing is what it seems” is more fitting here than in The Recruit.
The best performance, and sad the only one, comes from Michael Caine. He is a convincingly cynical and a compelling witness/narrator to the events transpired in the story without appearing that he is not innocent. Brendan Fraser seems distant. His performance seems dull opposite Caine. The Vietnamese cast members are sufficiently fine, though there is little breath to the characters they played. Phuong is the resident apple of one’s eye.
The Quiet American is excellent filmmaking in direction, cinematography and screenplay. It is transparent enough to bring out Greene’s message regarding United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. In one scene, Pyle claims that the number of lives lost in the short term (about 30 in the car-bomb explosion) will save many more lives in the long term. Neither he, nor we, would see the full folly of his words and beliefs, because the story ends in the beginning of what would become a war gone wrong.
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