17e parallèle: La Guerre du peuple

Joris Ivens' 1968 documentary, 17th Parallel, is compelling, albeit flawed, viewing. Filmed in co-operation (to put it mildly) with the North Vietnamese government at the height of America's involvement in the war, it recounts the struggles of the people who live along the 17th parallel or, as it was more commonly known at the time, the Demilitarized Zone. What makes it so fascinating to this American was it brought home just how little I knew about the people of Vietnam and how the war was seen from their point of view. Since the DMZ was pretty much ground zero, Ivens use of the relentless background noise of jets and artillery drives home the fact that the peasant's life was not an easy one, and the views of the extensive underground bunkers called home add to the understanding.

That said, Ivens, whose career spanned from the late '20s to the '80s with stints in the Soviet Union and Spanish Civil War, could capture war in excruciatingly uncomfortable ways. Particularly difficult are the 9 year old children with rifles and practicing their 'English' to use when they confront soldiers, and the captured fighter pilot being marched through the village. However, this is obviously propaganda. We are given endless sequences of committee members aiding the proletariat, and their estimates of enemy killed and wounded are even more preposterous than ours were at the time. More odious than the propaganda we were creating (**cough**Green Berets**cough**)? Maybe not, still, it's a slice of history that does present an alternate viewpoint that is worth seeing for those that are interested.