Spotlight
Spotlight Date: 10-August-03
Spoiler Rating: High
Thousand Pieces of Gold (1991)
When Chris Cooper won an Oscar last March, it represented a long overdue public acknowledgment that he is one of America's finest actors --- and also that he possesses a unique brand of sex appeal. Few if any reviews of "Adaptation" failed to note with admiring wonder that somehow, some way, Cooper made a surly, obsessive, dentally challenged hick undeniably irresistible, and this played a big part in the recognition he justly received. But I didn't need this tour de force to convince me of these things; I had known about Cooper's talent and sexiness for over a decade, ever since I first saw "Thousand Pieces of Gold."
The movie is based on a true story (related in a book of the same name) about a Chinese woman (Rosalind Chao) who is sold by her father, shipped to San Francisco, and transported overland to a mining outpost in Oregon in the 1880s. Although prepared to accept her fate as the wife of another Chinese immigrant, she learns upon her arrival that her "husband," a callous businessman fully adapted to the barbarity of the Old West (Michael Paul Chan), plans to make her into an exotic whore. Refusing to go along with his plan by threatening violence and suicide, she accepts instead the role of virtual slave in the saloon, which preserves her body but fails to prevent lesser indignities such as being called "Polly" even though her name is Lalu. Over the course of a couple of years, she manages through sheer strength of character to forge a life on her own terms, aided by a white man named Charlie (Cooper) who has loved her from first sight. In the end, Lalu breaks free not only from affliction and servitude, but also from the debilitating prejudice she has witnessed in men of all colors, and in herself.
Although the film does have a slight Hollywood gloss, for the most part it maintains a natural feel that accentuates the biographical nature of the story. Lalu's progression from being a foreigner in a strange land (unable to speak the language, disgusted by the natives, and ignorant of the customs) to fitting in with a cross-section of the townspeople (with whom she shares common idioms, clothing, and cooking styles) is nicely delineated and allows the viewer to partake of her sense of satisfaction. In addition, the character of Charlie feels honestly depicted by both the script and Cooper. He's suitably attractive for a romantic role, but still has the rough edges of the Western man, with weaknesses for drinking, gambling, and whoring. A bit of back story about his hatred of slavery --- for which he fought in the Civil War and endured months of hell in Andersonville prison --- also serves to ground the tale in history while explaining Charlie's attitude and motivation.
But for all the true-life interest of "Thousand Pieces of Gold," it's the romance that really strikes a chord, and we have Cooper to thank for that. Lalu's story is marked throughout by her relationships with men: the father who sold her, the brute who bought her, a Chinese man on whom she initially pins her hopes of escape, and Charlie, who always appears when she needs him. As the movie progresses, she comes to realize that Charlie is the only one who ever regarded her as a person instead of a female bound by predetermined standards of conduct and worth. It takes a long time for Lalu to recognize this, however, during which Cooper wins over the rest of us with a perfect combination of tarnished hero and boy-next-door, of wounded soul and hopeless romantic, the kind of guy who cannot take what he wants, but will hang in there day after day on the off chance it will befall him. It's not exactly the most dynamic or noble of roles, but it fits Cooper's strengths to a T; and, in a movie as much about woman's triumph over the cruelty of men as about romance, Charlie's benign, unassuming, and idealistic nature provides a fitting contrast to the harsh and unsympathetic world in which Lalu has been forced to live.
"Thousand Pieces of Gold" loses steam at the end, succumbing to a few rushed and choppy scenes that diminish the impact of the heroine's success and fulfillment. Overall, however, it delivers an impressive tale of spirit and determination overcoming a very bad situation, as well as an affecting story of love growing in the most unlikely of places.
Copyright © 2003 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.
