/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-VIETNAM: ‘The Quiet American’ Creates a Stir

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

HO CHI MINH CITY, Dec 17 2002 (IPS) - The screening here of the latest Hollywood adaptation of ‘The Quiet American’, based on Graham Greene’s 1955 novel, is a long-awaited one after the Vietnamese authorities gave the film the ideological green light.

The film, which tells the story of a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative whose actions lead to the murder of dozens of innocent Vietnamese during the 1950s, premiered on Dec. 17 and Dec. 19 and will be publicly screened after Christmas.

"I think many Vietnamese would very much like to see the movie because they’re curious to see how Hollywood has portrayed their country," Nguyen Van Tinh of MoCI’s International Relations Department said.

In many ways, the 30 million U.S. dollar film is more than just another version of ‘The Quiet American’ – an earlier one was made in the fifties.

Many Vietnamese, those who have watched pirated videocasettes of the film and those who plan to watch it, have high expectations because unlike the earlier version, this version includes local actors and support staff.

Half of the movie was shot in Vietnam – it is said to be the first major foreign movie filmed in the country. The lead actress who plays Phuong is Vietnam’s own Do Thi Hai Yen.

Phuong captivates the two main characters, British journalist Thomas Fowler, played by Michael Caine, and CIA agent Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), in a story set in 1952, during the last days of French regime in the southern Vietnamese city of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.

The Giai Phong (Liberation) Film Company in Hanoi supplied production services for ‘The Quiet American’ and has bought the distribution rights for it in Vietnam.

”Its care for historical details is impressive,” says Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat, deputy director of the Vietnam Cinema Department at the Ministry of Culture and Information (MoCI) who is also a scriptwriter.

”The locations, the clothes, the figures, all have been carefully selected and resurrected to create the atmosphere of Vietnam in the colonial era,” Ngat explained.

But other viewers seem more engrossed in the love story rather than the wartime and political nuances in the film, directed by Australia’s Philip Noyce.

It in fact debuts in Vietnam – the film had limited releases in New York and Los Angeles a month ago – as a movie portraying the unfolding of a love triangle in the early days of America’s involvement in the Indochina conflict. ”The screenwriter has changed several scenes taken from the novel and the plot,” remarked Nguyen Minh, 51, who has seen a pirated version of the film. ”In the film, the character of Phuong becomes more important. Her psychology is more complex and colourful. Throughout the film, Phuong is always torn between the two lovers.”

”What concerns her is happiness, whether it comes from Fowler or Pyle, or any other man,” he explained.

Movie critic Sam Thuong commented: "I’ve seen the version of The Quiet American’ made by celebrated Hollywood director Joseph Mankiewics in the 1950s. It was filmed overseas with foreign actors and actresses, and did not succeed in rendering the atmosphere of the time or the ‘etat d’ame (state of mind) of the Vietnamese people.”

”I hope Yen will play the character of Phuong more successfully than the Italian actress Georgia Moll did,” he said.

”I think Phuong is stronger than the two male characters and serves to build her own future. Phuong is careful and quiet. Regardless of the circumstances, she always finds a way to recover, to stabilise herself and then continue toward what she wants,” said Do Hai Yen, who herself plays Phuong.

”Phuong is a kind of symbol of Vietnam, and Philip Noyce was right when gave the role to a local actress,” Minh added.

No wonder then that Vietnam’s National Review Council approved it for mass distribution, calling it a ”progressive” film that reflects Vietnamese history in the fifties.

The major themes Greene pursued in his war novel and which appear in the movie – conflict and the American abuse of power – did not draw remarks from the cinema reviewers. They also did not draw any political lessons from the movie, particularly the U.S. tragic attempt to shape policy in Vietnam.

Probably, the talk here goes, officials took into consideration the local elements in the movie and wanted to reach some reconciliation with Hollywood after the recent official opposition here to movies like ‘We Were Soldiers’ and ‘Green Dragon’, which were called "anti-Vietnamese".

"I haven’t seen the film yet, but last summer in Hoi An I saw each foreign tourist with a copy of ‘The Quiet American’ in their hands. They came to Vietnam after reading the famous novel. The impact of a film is of course much stronger," said the vice chairman of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Pham Tu.

Meantime, people like Tran Minh Vu, a movie aficionado, are all set to watch ‘The Quiet American’ later this month. No, she would not bother to watch the pirated version because it will be shown in Vietnamese cinemas anyway.

This is also what movie distributors in Vietnam are hoping ‘The Quiet American’ will do – draw moviegoers back to vacant theatres with the entry of foreign-made movies.

But for 18-year-old Nguyen Thi Ai, talk of war – even in films – is too distant from her life in today’s Vietnam. ”I don’t think I will go watch ‘The Quiet American’. I don’t like that wartime atmosphere. The characters are too complex for me.”

There are two must-see films for him – the latest James Bond movie ‘Die Another Day’, and ‘Harry Potter II’.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-VIETNAM: ‘The Quiet American’ Creates a Stir

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

HO CHI MINH CITY, Dec 17 2002 (IPS) - The screening here of the latest Hollywood adaptation of ‘The Quiet American’, based on Graham Greene’s 1955 novel, is a long-awaited one after the Vietnamese authorities gave the film the ideological green light.
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