The Anderson Platoon

The Anderson Platoon

Coincidentally, the day before I went to review “The Anderson Platoon,” I happened to see Eugene Jones’ “A Face of War” at a screening.

Both films are cinéma vérité examinations of riflemen in Vietnam, but compared to “The Anderson Platoon” which won an Academy Award this year the Jones film is infinitely more true and infinitely better.

Filmed for French television by Pierre Schoendorffer, a war correspondent who was with the French at Dien Bien Phu, “The Anderson Platoon” follows one platoon through several weeks of jungle warfare; there are interludes as members go on leave in Saigon, moments of humor and moments of horror so grisly that you can’t believe your eyes. The entire film is narrated.

Jones used only available sound in “A Face of War.” There isn’t a word of narration. The sound is a jumble: radio broadcasts, orders shouted over gunfire, calls for help from wounded men, obscenities shouted at prisoners or wryly among friends, wisecracking back and forth between lines, briefings in Saigon bars where officers drone on about politics while sergeants count the bullets they’ll need next week.

Oddly enough it’s much easier to follow the action this way than when Schoendorffer tries futilely to explain things through his narrator. It’s dogs versus elephants: Schoendorffer wants us to understand everything that happens in his film; Jones knows we won’t understand much but trusts us to feel.

“Anderson Platoon” has cute effects (while GIs march through mud Nancy Sinatra sings “Boots Are Made for Walking”), “A Face of War” none. But it does show soldiers assisting at a battlefield birth and acting in traditionally sentimental ways (“Ain’t he a tough little bastard? Hey snookums what you cryin’ about? Upsy-daisy”). It is a deeply moving scene.

Also moving are the faces of the soldiers as they give frantic first aid to men caught by a booby trap; their faces late at night as they stare into campfires and stand watch over sleeping comrades; their faces as they peer into the jungle for the enemy, waiting for something to move but never knowing what it will be.

Neither film takes a position for or against the war. Neither Schoendorffer nor Jones makes speeches. They let events speak for themselves, which is always more eloquent.

But Schoendorffer’s film is about Vietnam: not just any war, but that specific war. And I pray that despite its French subtitles “The Anderson Platoon” will find a booking here pretty soon (it played at the Cannes Film Festival last year and won top prize). Because I think we need to see it: young men and women going off to fight in Vietnam while some politicians call this madness peace don’t we need to see it?

“A Face of War,” on the other hand, is not about Vietnam. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been there or not; it doesn’t even matter if you have any idea where “there” might be. This film is about every rifleman who ever lived: lonely and tired and proud and bitter and scared.

Watch The Anderson Platoon For Free On Gomovies.