Hearts and Minds begins with footage on a village that is northwest of Saigon in Vietnam named Hung Dinh. Without any type of introduction the film starts off in this setting and leaves its viewer unexpectant of what is to come. You see the activities of farming, children running around, and other normal day to day activites. What seems as a calm and normal environment for villagers to live there lives has a unexpected future in hold. The documentary follows this by showing rare footage dating back to the mid 1900s of people who were interviewed in all sorts of subjects but the main topic seemed to be communism. You get to hear what I made out to be the opinions of some political figures, also the stories of veterans of the Vietnam war, along
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I personally was not sure whether alot of it was true or not, and most of the time found myself in disbelief. I remember seeing one man stating in an interview that while on some sort of exhibition in Vietnam he was linked up with American soldiers who actually threw a Vietnamese enemy out of the helicoptor for not giving them information. That alone is definetly something the United States government would keep as a secret and never reveal to the public but you always have that person who slips out. In this case this man who is interviewed explained in it vivid detail and seemed to be telling the truth. After him was a Seargent from the Army who responds to the mans interview in opposition and claims that as a Seargent he never saw anything like that and it very well could of been a made up story. To me this is mind blowing because you dont know who to believe but at the same time its also ironic because here I had this picture of American soldiers as the perfect warrior who always did the right thing. So to me this was definetly a shocker that I found half way through the documentary. This unfortunately was one of many more revalations soon to …show more content…
I say this because personally while I was watching the documentary at the start I was moraled and eager to see the US prevail in the Vietnam War. And remembering back to my lectures in any classroom on the Vietnam War, I can recall that it was the first war that United States lost, and that always bugged me for some reason. Especially in my high school US history class, I remember being taught that the United States took its place as the world power after the two victories in the world wars, and when you see the US unable to defeat the Vietnam army it was surprising. Who would of thought that such a small country as Vietnam would be able to hold it down and resist the invasion of the US army. In addition, the documentary takes this idea I had of a loss into a whole new understanding with much more detail. What had seemed as the right thing to do for the President and the government, turns out to be a big mistake on their behalf and they live to regret it. You see interviews with the wounded from the war who for about the first half of the film seem to be completely normal and then the camera just reveals who they truly are. This strategy is something that I have never seen in any other documentary and what makes this one so
I personally was not sure whether alot of it was true or not, and most of the time found myself in disbelief. I remember seeing one man stating in an interview that while on some sort of exhibition in Vietnam he was linked up with American soldiers who actually threw a Vietnamese enemy out of the helicoptor for not giving them information. That alone is definetly something the United States government would keep as a secret and never reveal to the public but you always have that person who slips out. In this case this man who is interviewed explained in it vivid detail and seemed to be telling the truth. After him was a Seargent from the Army who responds to the mans interview in opposition and claims that as a Seargent he never saw anything like that and it very well could of been a made up story. To me this is mind blowing because you dont know who to believe but at the same time its also ironic because here I had this picture of American soldiers as the perfect warrior who always did the right thing. So to me this was definetly a shocker that I found half way through the documentary. This unfortunately was one of many more revalations soon to …show more content…
I say this because personally while I was watching the documentary at the start I was moraled and eager to see the US prevail in the Vietnam War. And remembering back to my lectures in any classroom on the Vietnam War, I can recall that it was the first war that United States lost, and that always bugged me for some reason. Especially in my high school US history class, I remember being taught that the United States took its place as the world power after the two victories in the world wars, and when you see the US unable to defeat the Vietnam army it was surprising. Who would of thought that such a small country as Vietnam would be able to hold it down and resist the invasion of the US army. In addition, the documentary takes this idea I had of a loss into a whole new understanding with much more detail. What had seemed as the right thing to do for the President and the government, turns out to be a big mistake on their behalf and they live to regret it. You see interviews with the wounded from the war who for about the first half of the film seem to be completely normal and then the camera just reveals who they truly are. This strategy is something that I have never seen in any other documentary and what makes this one so