Genre: TV Series
Grade: A++
Notable People: Ken Burns and Lynn Novak
Title: The Vietnam War
Review I’ve said before that Burns is the greatest documentarian in film history, and I would place this as his absolute masterpiece. The ten part, 20 plus hour series from 2017 narrates the sad and sordid tale of US involvement in southeast Asia, from the replacement of the French invader-hordes during the Eisenhower years and through the next four presidents. It took us 3 months of dinner watching increments to get through this- partially because of how long it takes, but mostly because of its raw power. It portrays the greatest divide in American history post-civil war- even greater than our current mayhem, and is filled with moral degradation, extraordinary lack of leadership, fear and power based lies that led to the loss of 60 thousand American lives. These were our children sent off by charlatans to fight an ideological power struggle on the other side of the world; one that was never in a million years going to be won. Burns does am amazing job of presenting all sides of this ideological debate, including many perspectives from both South and North Vietnamese warriors, as well las our own. That sense of what this decade of madness did to it warriors/participants becomes absolutely overwhelming to watch in the final episode as they look back, reflect on the impact their, and their family’s lives and ultimately build an astounding remembering wall; we wept for most of those two hours. No American should avoid watching this; if we do not learn from the mistakes of history we are doomed to repeat them. Amazing.
