The Fog of War (2003)

Undescribable Perfection

Purely Joyful Movie!

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

After spending an hour or so with an old man, a product of a important American university, a corporate player and a major decision maker in government policy, a man probably responsible for thousands of human deaths, one wonders why more of us have not been incinerated by bombs set loose by well-meaning madmen who are able to intellectualize and justify mass carnage with few second thoughts.This is an admirable slice of film-making, and while recognizing it's importance as a document, the ideas emanating from the human centerpiece didn't exactly thrill me; mass annihilation is not a particularly salubrious topic. This is a creepy, unsettling film about a man who learns quickly but whose messianic zeal is frightening. The film questions humanity's ability to learn from past mistakes and is seldom optimistic about it.

The soundtrack and the visual graphics are stunning. I was quite a proponent of the old "we had no choice but to nuke Japan" lobby until I saw this movie. What we did to Japanese civilians with conventional bombs flown from the Marianas is just unspeakable. This movie brings the terrible magnitude of General Curtis LeMay's war- crimes by comparing the bombed Japanese cities to similarly sized American ones as the bombs are falling. It's a very clever visual stunt and in my estimation, perhaps the best way to demonstrate to a modern audience just how bloodthirsty we were as a nation back in 1944.This movie also demonstrates how slippery the slope to go to war is once a President is committed to take some action. The movie achieves that by really drilling down into the casus belli for Vietnam- the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Documentary's for me are kind of difficult to ruin. Just as long as the subject matter is interesting.Having said that I own and love this film. Mainly because, without reading too much into McNamara before i saw this, I grew up thinking he was an jerk who bombed Vietnam into oblivion.But this film is really, very insightful, into the US policy in Vietnam under McNamara, his intentions in the war effort, etc. McNamara also gives out some sobering information, in regards to the Cold War Era. Such as, "we developed a 100 megaton bomb, and we detonated it the upper atmosphere!" His 11 lesson are good lessons that everyone can use I believe, such as, have "empathy" and "proportionality should be a guideline in war".This is a must see in my book, It may not deserve a 10 out of 10 stars, but as far as documentary's are concerned this belongs as one of the best in recent years. And anyone wanting to hear US motivations from the Secretary of Defence's mouth himself should enjoy this film and be very thankful for it. I found that I empathized with McNamara, as he laid out his intentions, admitted his mistakes, and described how things could have gone drastically worse than they did if "they" we're not there dealing with these issue/conflicts/wars. Overall it is a very insightful movie whether you like McNamara or not, meaning, this is not a partisan movie like say, Micheal Moore's films are. I only wish they had this for all of our leaders.

I really can't say how impressed I was with this film. The question here is who was directing who?This is a primary record of history as important as any other document on film I have ever scene.Diem being assassinated and Kennedy also soon after makes one wonder if maybe the stars were against us anyhow. I can remember the summer of 1963. All we were concerned about at the time was if we would beat the Russians to the moon. It was the better part of the cold war.Oh well.History can be so much rubbish except to those who will repeat it's mistakes.