I might like to see the 1950s version starring Audie Murphy (and almost Laurence Olivier if he hadn't turned it down) some day, but this is the one with Michael Caine as the British journalist and Brendan Fraser as the title character.
I had, somehow or the other, pretty well picked up on the truth about Fraser's character before ever watching the movie, so I was mostly watching him to see how he made Alden Pyle carry himself. Pyle acts like sort of a starstruck, clean-cut boy when he first meets Fowler (Caine). Well-meaning in his humanitarian desires, but naive. You could excuse his somehow sailing a little boat to a village under attack from "communists" as an expression of that, combined with the luck of the happy idiot.
The longer it goes, the more we and Fowler see other things. His utility with a gun, his ability to get Fowler an interview with the hot new Vietnamese general of the moment. His presence at an apparent "communist" terrorist bombing, barking orders at a photographer. OK, by that point the mask is basically off.
A lot of the movie is about how little Fowler sees, or certainly how little he understands. It takes him a long time to understand what Pyle is, and he gets a lot of help from his assistant Hinh (Tzi Ma), who is awfully well-connected. Again, not that Fowler questioned that at any point either. Little surprised a journalist wouldn't try to learn the language, if only so as not to miss out on useful gossip, but this seems like an extended vacation disguised as work for Fowler.
The one I'm most curious about, but who we get the least of their thoughts, is Phuong (Thi Hai Yen Do). She's Fowler's, girlfriend, kept woman, something like that, and Pyle seems to actually fall for her. In his own, white knight, way. He introduces her to big band music, American fashion and hairstyles, insists he's going to take her back with him to Boston. Essentially, he's going to Americanize her, to "save" her. Like some precursor to America winning with Big Macs what it couldn't with napalm.
Phuong goes along with all this, with a pleasant enough smile, but I can never tell if it's something she actually wants, or if it's just an extension of her past career as a taxi dancer, having to make every guy who buys a dance with her feel special.
Fowler doesn't do this, but when he describes to Pyle what she's doing while the two of them are trying to survive a night in a watchtower, it all sounds like things he's pressed on her. Looking through magazines at pictures of the Royal Family and listening to Bach. We have no idea what she's actually up to, but it's telling that his idea is she'd use her spare time on the things he likes. Fowler's not as overt about trying to change her, but that seems to be due to his wish to use her as an escape from a marriage he doesn't enjoy. She's different, exotic, and he likes that and this place.
Again, though, if Phuong means that much to him, why not learn her language? She doesn't object that we ever see, but it feels like she's made a choice based on a hope for financial stability. Especially at the end, when he finds her back on the taxi dancer circuit. Life with him is better than that, because at least he treats her generally well, even if he lies about his wife granting a divorce. Fowler either can't see it, or chooses not to, because she makes him happy, and he'll take it any way he can.
The American wants to change her, the European wants to revel in her exoticism, and Phuong just wants to get by in life, however she can.
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