The Apple TV Vietnam War Documentary Series

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Last night I watched the first episode of a documentary series on the Vietnam war, made by Apple TV. It’s eighteen hours of documentaries covering different aspects of the conflict.

In the first episode they speak about boots on the ground and tunnel rats. Through the exploration of this topic we see some footage of traps being prepared and some footage from within the underground tunnels.

In the footage we see an operating theatre in an undergorund room. I have watched just one episode so far but I hope that it offers visual context to what I have read about in various books on the Vietnam war over the years.

So far I like the editing and the style of this documentary. It’s well paced. No sensationalism, no excessive use of music. It allows you to watch the footage, and hear first hand accounts from US and VietCong. It provides a more global view of the conflict.

Working on such a project would be interesting, to watch hundreds or thousands of hours of footage, and to talk with first hand witnesses, to provide their own experiences of what they saw and witnessed. It’s important to interview these people and document their perspective and points of view, for future generations.

And Finally, more often than not I see a documentary with an interesting title and topic and I give up within minutes because the commentary is breathless, the editing is sensationalist, and in general it feels as if it was editied for people with no attention span. It’s refreshing to find a documentary that is providing facts, and letting the first hand accounts, and archive footage do the talking.