One Paragraph Movie Review: In The Year Of The Pig

Two hundred and fifty-seventh film: In The Year Of The Pig, a 1968 documentary about the Vietnam War. I really like this kind of documentary when it works — as this one does — with no commentary, just carefully edited-together and juxtaposed footage. The points made with this style are subtler, and even though you’re led purposefully by the filmmaker to an opinion, it feels like you formed it yourself. The primary opinion here is, of course, that war is bad, and the secondary one is that Americans (among others, including the French) will twist themselves into retrospectively-transparent knots to justify their arrogant and misdirected intrusions onto other peoples’ turf. I had my ignorance about the finer points and causes of the Vietnam War swiftly exposed, and was not at any time entertained, but it’s peculiar that you can find something borderline tedious while you’re watching it and then be obsessed with it afterwards. Not yay, but very hmmm. Two racist beach soldiers out of five.