The Vietnam War ended 50 years ago. But its lessons live on in The Quiet American

"Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) was a quiet American, says Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) to a French policeman. A friend, he adds, as the lifeless corpse of Pyle stares back at him with a wretched expression. This is the scene that opens Phillip Noyce's Vietnam-set political drama before the film flashes back a few months earlier to 1952 Saigon, where Fowler, an ageing Englishman, lives leisurely as a journalist reporting on the first Indochina war."

"When Pyle, a young American aid worker advocating for US intervention, falls for Fowler's 20-year-old Vietnamese lover, Phuong (o Thi Hai Yen), the jaded reporter's tranquil existence begins to unravel. At Pyle and Fowler's first meeting at the Continental hotel, it is clear that Pyle is anything but quiet: handsomely bespectacled, the American idealist is attentively reading Dangers to Democracy, a book on foreign policy. We've got to contain communism, Pyle says with conviction."

"Pyle is committed to his neo-colonial rhetoric; Fowler, meanwhile, is morally fatigued. But the two form an unlikely friendship, complicated by their rivalry to win Phuong's heart. There's beauty. There's daughter of a professor. Taxi dancer. Mistress of an older European man, is how Pyle describes Phuong, adding: That pretty well describes the whole country, doesn't it? Indeed, Phuong's country is beautiful, even if it has been ravaged under French rule. We are here to save Vietnam from all that, Pyle proclaims with zeal."

A corpse of Alden Pyle opens the story, then flashback to 1952 Saigon. Thomas Fowler, an ageing English journalist, lives leisurely amid the first Indochina war. Pyle, a young American aid worker, advocates US intervention and reads Dangers to Democracy, insisting on containing communism and establishing a US-backed third force. Pyle falls for Fowler's 20-year-old Vietnamese lover, Phuong, turning an unlikely friendship into rivalry and moral conflict. Pyle's neo-colonial rhetoric and zealous conviction contrast with Fowler's cynical pragmatism and moral fatigue. Phuong is described as beautiful and emblematic of a country ravaged by French rule.

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