Loin du Vietnam

If you are used to the rational sarcasm of Godard,you 'll like it.It presents his persistent concern --- politics and idealistic enthusiasm.In my eyes Godard himself is an idealist,but his political enthusiasm has to be confined to movie making.It's pity maybe,while for us moviegoers it's luck.

In this year of Bush vs. Kerry, when the campaign turns on issues of patriotism and war service, it is fascinating to go back to the Vietnam war to see the conflicts that rent American society of that time. The genesis of the film is interesting: the French public had been asked to give up a day's wages to help the Vietnamese people; finding this insufficient, Chris Marker had the idea of making a sketch film to protest the war. The problem is that the project was a collective effort: there are no credits to indicate who filmed what.

Resnais's sketch has a funny story of a stock shot of war atrocity that has been used so often that technicians call it "Gustave," and viewers look for it. Otherwise this is a silly, talky timewaster. The Godard sketch is even less effective--he uses footage from La Chinoise, the film he was working on at the time. Godard must have spent all of one afternoon on this. The purely documentary scenes come off best. The footage from the 50's must have been shot by Joris Ivens; it's wonderfully atmospheric. I wonder if he also shot the film on the American aircraft carrier as the sailors load the bombs onto the bombers that will pulverize Hanoi.

The best scenes of all were shot in New York; they show protesters from both sides of the ideological divide yelling their lungs out across police barricades. Every group and sub-group that could be imagined is represented here, and sometimes it's really funny to watch. Pity about the lack of credits.

Given the plethora of World Cinema names associated with it, this documentary obviously dealing with the war then being waged by the U.S. in South East Asia, has something of an unassailable reputation among films of its type; still, having gone through a number of titles from Godard's political phase and, more recently, Lelouch's LIVE FOR LIFE (1967) – which had incorporated images of physical torture and military maneuvers amid chintzy romantic complications! – I was wary of the prospect, to say the least!! Incidentally, I have a TV-to-VHS recording of this (with Italian subtitles) somewhere and had intended watching it as part of a marathon commemorating Godard's 80th birthday in 2010…but I now acquired an English-friendly edition in time for my tribute to the late Resnais. Anyway, the movie emerged a decidedly fascinating – if necessarily heady – concoction: at nearly 2 hours, it did eventually prove tiresome for a rainy Sunday afternoon's viewing...but not before the subject itself had been exhausted by delving into all the various angles and sides of the conflict!

Divided into segments to better delineate each film-maker's contribution, the pacing and interest level inevitably come across as uneven throughout but, all things considered, there were – surprisingly enough – perhaps more pros than cons to the picture! Among the better sequences were Godard's typically innovative approach: an admirably candid admission that he decided to fill his movies (even before officially forsaking mainstream cinema for over a decade!) with political slogans, thus demonstrating his alliance with several causes the world over, because he was refused entry in most countries where these struggles were taking place (include Vietnam)! Resnais' involved actor Bernard Fresson ranting, amid the spouting of anti-American declarations, about how one could live contentedly knowing (from extensive – and exclusive – TV coverage of the war) what was going on around us, all the while being observed by an attractive yet bored- looking girl.

Other sections depict an interview with Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro (who would have thought he would still be around nearly 50 years later?!) denoting how guerrilla warfare is essential to the underdog for reversing the odds in any given conflict; an American Quaker widow, with a brood of children in tow, serenely recounts how her impetuous husband took rather extreme measures to demonstrate where his sympathies lied – setting himself on fire in front of the Pentagon building!; since filming of this took place during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, opposition to the war was not as widespread (thanks largely to sugar- coated reports – broadcast, in very scarce reception, on national TV – grossly perverting the veracity of the situation!) as it would be subsequently when Richard Nixon occupied the White House – so that we get simultaneous street rallies both for and against the (still- controversial) policy of American interventionism, and including a Jew doing impromptu eccentric chants built around the word "Napalm"!!; most instructively, the backstory of the Vietnamese occupation (which France gladly relinquished to the U.S. in the mid-1950s) is related in some detail; one episode, then, is called "Why We Fight" – possibly in tribute to the classic series of WWII documentaries supervised by Frank Capra…yet making for an ironic moniker in this case, since the U.S. is pretty much seen as the villain now!; we also learn that the Americans derisively refer to the Viet-Cong forces as "Victor Charlie" (in the same way the German and Japanese enemy used to be dubbed "Jerry" and "Mr. Tojo" respectively by them for the duration of WWII)!; finally, the most chilling statement to be found here was the prophetic one made by a black activist (which I mistakenly took to be Malcolm X!) – who was of the opinion that the American people were too far removed from Vietnam (hence the movie's title) to really care, and that it would take an affront carried out on their proper soil in order to extract the desired reaction out of them!!

If not for other reasons, this movie is notable especially for Godard's contribution, his dialogue with the camera. It may be considered as a starting "decentring" intervention into the field of colonial discourse, which produced visible consequnces for the concept of subjectivity.

Astonishing state of the war, in 1967 it was against Vietnam but now is a good day to (re)watch that piece of art / documentary. Times have (not) changed, people in power have changed (but not their ideology), war location has (not) changed, America has (not) changed.

Terrible facts for the soon to be ex-biggest super power in the world. Hopefully the world that Chinese are bringing to us is less violent. I have my reserves but when you see what happened in the last 55 years despite all the protests, it is quite satisfactory to see the fall of the american empire accelerating. Karma is a b**** right?