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The potency of Phillip Noyce's
film of Graham Greene's 1973 novel The Quiet American lies partly in its
disturbing echoes of current war games in the Gulf.
In the 1950s Americans still found it expedient to tinker covertly via
undercover agents in the life of foreign nations and cultures - in this
case in the French colonial wars in Vietnam. In step with the CIA's infiltration
of warring factions in the turbulent colony, veteran British journalist
Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) jousts with the quiet American, Alden Pyle
(Brendan Fraser), for possession of Fowler's lover, the beautiful Phuong
(Do Thi Hai Yen).
Amidst the blood-letting of guerrilla warfare the two men discuss Phuong.
Pyle wants to take her back to America and marry her, which he insists
is a more honourable course than Fowler's ad hoc relationship with her
(a result of Fowler's estranged wife's refusal to divorce him). Under
fire in a bunker Pyle wonders aloud what Phuong is doing now. Fowler replies
that she is listening to Mozart and turning the pages of a magazine. For
him she is not a prize of war, but his reason for living.
The 1952 massacre of civilians in the heart of Saigon, engineered by the
would-be guardians of liberty, changes the course of the war, and the
two men's relationship. The death toll of men, women and children from
two car bombs outside the Hotel Continental stands at 30 and is still
rising, when Pyle assures Fowler that it will be "for the best" in the
end. Ironically his sentiment echoes the tragic error of Communist governments
(or perhaps the fundamental flaw of ideology, whether Communist or capitalist),
in sacrificing present generations for the future.
The puppet General Thé set up and equipped by the CIA has been ticked
off for targeting civilians, Pyle assures Fowler with breath-taking complacency.
This is the moment when Fowler, racked with ideological dilemma and personal
loss, makes the decision to hand his 'friend' over to the other side,
his Vietnamese chief of staff, who promises to deal with the situation
with the gentleness it deserves.
Pyle's body is dragged out of the harbour next morning. The movie puts
a powerful argument for 'participatory journalism' - the realisation at
a crisis in a journalist's experience that there is no option but to take
sides. The ideal of objective reporting disappeared together with the
hegemony of colonial rationalism.
Powerless to file real-life stories of the burgeoning war, Fowler chooses
to throw in his lot with Vietnam, and Phuong, and say goodbye to his job
as a foreign correspondent. Noyce runs a collage of news pages from the
Vietnam war at the end of this movie. They bear silent witness to the
tragedy latent in Pyle's naïve belief that university lectures and text
books hold solutions for the wellbeing of nations. However, it is Pyle's
romantic idealism that forces Fowler off the British imperial fence. The
casualties of their personal and ideological struggle are of course the
Vietnamese.
Amazon.co.uk
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