Just finished the 10 part docu series "the vietnam war" in netflix. every part is at least 90mins long, most are about 110min so it was about 17 hours of footage, interviews ans analysis, commentary and i can highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in this part of history.
it's a suberb documentary!
i knew most things in this documetary, but what it does is to lay out a timeline, beginning 1858 with the french imperial situation in vietnam, going till 1973 and onward, and it showed me some connections and gave some insights which widened my view and opinions about that war.
it's the best educational documentary i've seen so far, taking a topic and really going in deeply. for example, you know the infamous picture of the shooting/killing of a vietcong spy by the police chief of saigon, but here you'll see the sequence longer than i've ever seen and it's shocking! there was so much going on in my head when watching it, so many scenes reminded me of the many war movies i watched and it was strange to see, that some of the scenes just could be out of a movie.
you can learn that at those days society seemed to function normally, that as soon as the media showed whats going on, a huge and organized opposition formed and that people were taking responsibility of the actions of their government and felt they have to stand up against it. and you can learn that the elite and rulers learned even more from that war. namely that you cannot allow a free press, that you have to censor all cruel images of war, that you have to scare and intimidate any protesters and protest from citizens and you have to lie, and lie and lie again. so these times of protest are over.
"No, there's nothing wrong here, nothing at all
So keep that smile on your face, have a drink to help you sleep at night
They got what they desired - We're passive in their brave new world"
