Inside North Vietnam

Felix Greene and some Japanese cameramen deliver something quite harrowing to watch as his camera trawls the ancient land of Vietnam in 1965 just as the war from the south of the country visited itself on the communist north. Formerly part of French Indo-China, private land ownership has been morphed into public communality and we see families engaged in the sort of traditional agrarian living that employs some 95% of the rural population. Then the US forces start to target their smaller towns and cities, destroying infrastructure, buildings and people in equal measure. Despite assurances from the authorities in Washington that very specific targets are all that is being selected, it is pretty clear from these images that however specifically targeted these bombs might have been, their accuracy is nothing to write home about. These are not a people who give up, though, and pretty swiftly we see signs of a mobilisation. Not a military one - though clearly their military is doing what it can against supersonic bombers - but more one to ensure the survival of the population. Trenches are hastily dug to provide shelter and makeshift hospitals and schools erected. The population are asked to defer falling in love, or failing that getting married or worse still, having kids because with the traditional roles of women being thrown under the sampan, just about every able-bodied person was engaged in a combined national effort to feed and secure a population whom it has to be said do not look remotely menacing nor threatening as they use their cattle to till the soil or milk their goats. It’s all filmed on location so regardless of whether Greene himself had an axe to grind with this film, the photography clearly speaks for itself and despite their tenacity this is one David and Goliath battle where David hasn’t a hope in hell. This does t try to contextualise the war or justify the politics either way, it just illustrates clearly the human impact of modern battlefield capabilities against a population whose protection lay largely in their wiles and wits whilst buried in the ground or behind an original bamboo curtain.

Felix Greene and some Japanese cameramen deliver something quite harrowing to watch as his camera trawls the ancient land of Vietnam in 1965 just as the war from the south of the country visited itself on the communist north. Formerly part of French Indo-China, private land ownership has been morphed into public communality and we see families engaged in the sort of traditional agrarian living that employs some 95% of the rural population. Then the US forces start to target their smaller towns and cities, destroying infrastructure, buildings and people in equal measure. Despite assurances from the authorities in Washington that very specific targets are all that are being selected, it is pretty clear from these images that however specifically targeted these bombs might have been, their accuracy is nothing to write home about. These are not a people who give up, though, and pretty swiftly we see signs of a mobilisation. Not a military one - though clearly their military is doing what it can against supersonic bombers - but more one to ensure the survival of the population. Trenches are hastily dug to provide shelter and makeshift hospitals and schools erected. The population are asked to defer falling in love, or failing that getting married or worse still, having kids because with the traditional roles of women being thrown under the sampan, just about every able-bodied person was engaged in a combined national effort to feed and secure a population whom it has to be said do not look remotely menacing nor threatening as they use their cattle to till the soil or milk their goats. It’s all filmed on location so regardless of whether Greene himself had an axe to grind with this film, the photography clearly speaks for itself and despite their tenacity this is one David and Goliath battle where David hasn’t a hope in hell. This doesn’t try to contextualise the war or justify the politics either way, it just illustrates clearly the human impact of modern battlefield capabilities against a population whose protection lay largely in their wiles and wits whilst buried in the ground or behind an original bamboo curtain.