In the Year of the Pig

...Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is making huge waves as I write this, and yet IN THE YEAR OF THE PIG proves that the concept Moore used was nothing new. Back when the war against Vietnam was being waged by LBJ, this Emile de Antonio classic connected the dots on what had actually been happening in Vietnam since the Japanese occupation forces of World War Two left. In fact, a few years later HEARTS AND MINDS used much of the same material (that time in color) but not with nearly as much historical background as de Antonio does here. This is a harrowing collection of fact, a heartbreaking showcase of official ethnic disrespect, and one of the few true staples of the '60s counterculture that neither originated from its own ranks nor is dated in its technique (black and white cinematography notwithstanding)...

In The Year of the Pig is as important to narrative cinema as it is to documentary cinema. The raw and powerful anti-Vietnam (note- De made the film in 1968 and not in the 80's or 90's like directors such as Stone or Kubrick) documentary is composed of archival footage, interviews done by De himself, and an amazing soundtrack done by a student of avant-garde composer John Cage. De first tackled didactic montage in Point of Order and he all but masters it in this film. Imagine this- war torn American soldiers, legless and bloody, being carried off the battlefield while "Old Glory" is being played on timbas and other Indonesian instruments. It is so anti-American, anti-War, and brilliant. This film is a seminal piece of work in the New American Cinema and should be preserved for generations to come.

"Pig" is not quite as narratively focused in terms of a brew of Archival political talking heads and docu-newsreels with (for then) newly shot interviews as one gets with Marcel Ophuls work, and it can't help but have some competition now in more recent years with Ken Burns and his Vietnam War epic documentary (frankly except for Hearts and Minds I'm not sure how many others would fare by comparison at such a tall order). It's one of those times with a documentary where I was never exactly lost with the information that is given, but a conventional Narrator at points would've been a boost.

Yet this is nevertheless fascinating for the scope of how this filmmaker digs into how while some of the escalations were on the Americans, but there was also rampant corruption in the governments of South Vietnam over the years as well (at least according to some of these politicians who one should take with a grain or rock of salt). All of those moments of rampant viomece and horrors in the streets of those cities are captivating, and even just that one shot of the planes dropping the multitudes of bombs has this awful elegance to it. I should also note that to have that politician say outright how clearly it was to anyone with two brain cells that going past aid to Vietnam would lead to disaster is really something else.

But most of all (of course) is the section with the Buddhist priests who march in protest and then who burned themselves alive; it's odd to think the first time I saw this was in Bergman's Persona (the only time that film references something so topical and immediate), though as I age I get it: your soul is always going to ache watching that scene, and it only becomes more harrowing and heartbreaking for all of humanity the more horrors happen throughout humankind.

This is one of the finest documentaries ever made. It is essential for Americans and Europeans to view this work about our crimes and mentality upon and toward Indochina and its nations and peoples, the focus here being Viet Nam. The gathered archive footage is superb and this work in itself has languished unseen for decades now restored on DVD. Which comes with a very well written booklet essay by Douglas Kellner who illuminates the differences between how Emile de Antonio approached the subject versus the establishment media. The latter always presenting the world with that "voice of god" narrator that is entirely absent from IN THE YEAR OF THE PIG.

One word of caution, understand that the events were still going on during the making of these interviews and there was facts about goings-on inside the oval office under Eisenhower, JFK and LBJ (the film is pre NIXON admin ) that were not only not known to journalists but even Whitehouse or admin employees who were out of the particular loop. Facts that have since been revealed in declassified documents or candid confessions of top tier insiders.

This is particularly true about JFK and the blinding light of the post assassination mythology that made even down to earth journalists reluctant to attribute blame to Kennedy. So my tip is when you watch try and see through their reluctance to blame and willingness to imply and believe a wonderful world that would have been...if only on that day in Dallas...remember there was no Vietnamese conflict prior to Franco-American imperial interference in Viet Nam. It was not a Vietnamese made conflict it was an imperial one made by external hands.

Worth the time to revisit especially in today's money-making military-industrial complex. Colonialism & imperialism are often ugly: be prepared for disgust as this work adeptly weaves historical footage (lots of white-male talking heads) as a means to untangle the complicated mess of the Vietnam War. The approach is decidedly anti-war; the effect is certainly thought-provoking; and the visceral reactions of the work's first audiences probably speaks to the filmmaker hitting a nerve--perhaps the same nerve most humans have when confronted with such an ugly truth about themselves that hostility & denial ensue.