The Quiet American

I wrote the following observations on the movie 'The Quiet American' in a forum for my war history module:

This movie is so cool! Watching Pyle’s frustration in his last meeting with Fowler as he says ‘It’d be so much easier if I hadn’t met either of you’, alluding to the French and Vietnamese is so much more poignant than reading from books Lyndon Johnson calling the conflict a ‘bitch of a war’.
I also like the allegory of the French people as the angry conservative wife who “doesn’t believe in divorce”, stopping Fowler from marrying Phuong (or Phoenix rising from the ashes like the embittered Vietnamese fighting for liberation? Wow.. there’s no end to this!). It also alludes to France’s inability to divorce itself from its grand civilizing mission.
Finally, the film ends dramatically with Pyle’s death. He is dressed in white, representing the sincerity and virtue of America fight against the evils of communism. Also, while Pyle’s death symbolizes Kennedy’s assassination, the way he was stabbed to death alludes to Diem’s assassination. The news reports that follow immediately tells us of the escalation of U.S. involvement that followed after the assassinations. ☺

It was so much fun trying to decipher the allegories in the movie! History/movie buffs should not miss 'The Quiet American'! Now I understand why Jo loves literature. So chim...

What an awful lot of movies I'm watching this sem..