'The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick' Episode Review: 'Deja Vu (1858-1961)'

Episode One: Déjà Vu (1858-1961)

Written by: Geoffrey C. Ward

Directed by: Ken Burns & Lynn Novick

After a long and brutal war, Vietnamese revolutionaries led by Ho Chi Minh end nearly a century of French colonial occupation. With the Cold War intensifying, Vietnam is divided in two. Communists in the North aim to reunify the country, while America supports Ngo Dinh Diem’s untested regime in the South. – from The Vietnam War’s Episode List.

On September 17, 2017, PBS premiered “Déjà Vu (1858-1961),” Episode One of The Vietnam War, a 10-part documentary series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (The War, Prohibition). Produced by Burns, Novick, and Sarah Botstein, this 18-hour exploration of one of the most divisive events in modern American history was 10 years in the making. It features interviews of participants from all sides, including civilians and veterans from North and South Vietnam. (Hence the series’ tagline: “There is no single truth in war.”)

(C) 2017 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and Florentine Films

“Déjà Vu (1858-1961)” is an overview of the complex causes of America’s “lost crusade” in Vietnam. Beginning with France’s 1858 invasion of the region it called “La Indochine” – Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia – and the bloody 50-year period of what the French called “pacification,” the 81-minute episode chronicles the early life of Ho Chi Minh and his life-long struggle for his country’s independence, as well as the effects of the Cold War on American foreign policy in Southeast Asia. 

In some ways, “Déjà Vu (1858-1961)” resembles "Roots of a War (1945-1953)," the first part of Vietnam: A Television History," PBS' landmark 1983 documentary which delved into the strategic and political issues of the war and its immediate aftermath. Both episodes look at the causes of the war, particularly France's defeat at the hands of Ho's Viet Minh and the Cold War miscalculations that led to Vietnam's "temporary" division in 1954.

But where "Roots of a War" is a Big Picture look at the topic, series writer (and long-time collaborator with Ken Burns) Geoffrey C. Ward  writes “Déjà Vu (1858-1961)”  as a "bottom-up" narrative by weaving the historical plot points of the long, slow buildup to the Second Indochina War with interviews with U.S. and Vietnamese (from North and South) participants, including Karl Marlantes and Bao Ninh,  in the later stages of the Vietnam War. 

Visually, “Déjà Vu (1858-1961)” is done in the familiar "Ken Burns Style." Cinematographer Buddy Squires blends contemporary on-location footage shot in the U.S. and Vietnam with intimate closeups of the men and women interviewees. Squires, Burns, and editors Allie Ames, Jeff Cornell, and Shaina Holmes also add striking visuals with their mix of still photography and archival footage - some of it never  before seen in the U.S. 

One of the niftiest uses of visual effects in “Déjà Vu (1858-1961)” is seen early on in the prologue to the episode. During Peter Coyote's narrative introduction, we see events from the war projected in reverse (from the dumping of South Vietnamese helicopters into the South China Sea at war's end to a shot of a French soldier tramping into a rice paddy in 1945), as if Burns had turned on a wayward projector to undo the destructive effects of the war on America, France, and Southeast Asia. 

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, like most great filmmakers, know that music is a key ingredient in any cinematic story, and “Déjà Vu (1858-1961)” boasts an awesome musical score. Curiously, Burns & Novick choose to bookend the episode with Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." It's a song that sounds appropriate for the topic, but it is anachronistic (it was released in 1963) and it's about nuclear war, not the Vietnam War. Maybe it was chosen because of its somber tone and sad lyrics; it does have a certain melancholic quality. Nevertheless, it is an odd choice. 

Other than that, the music in “Déjà Vu (1858-1961)” is magnificent. Whether it's a popular song from the period, traditional Vietnamese music played by the Silk Road Ensemble (featuring cellist Yo Yo Ma), or original music by David Cieri, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross, each track enhances the gripping, sometimes heartbreaking visuals and gives them emotional weight. 

Obviously, no documentary about Vietnam will ever answer every question about the war and its causes to everyone's satisfaction. I've been looking at the comments on PBS' Vietnam War Facebook posts, and the responses show that the public is still divided over the war and how the media depicts it. Some veterans say that “Déjà Vu (1858-1961)” is educating them about things they did not know at the time. Others blast the filmmakers as "liberals" who downplay Ho Chi Minh's communist sympathies and glorify the North Vietnamese - America's adversaries - as freedom fighters. 

I think “Déjà Vu (1858-1961)” is a fairly balanced look at how France's desperate bid to maintain its empire at all costs led to a well-meaning but foolish American effort to essentially create a nation - South Vietnam - as part of the larger Cold War struggle against Red China and the Soviet Union. The episode emphasizes that three U.S. Presidents - Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy - made decisions regarding Vietnam in rather simplistic - and as it turned out - misguided terms such as the Domino Theory. ("If South Vietnam falls, then Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines will all go Red, and then we'll be fighting the Commies on Malibu Beach....)   

On the whole,“Déjà Vu (1858-1961)” is well-made, thought-provoking, and doesn't pretend to have all the answers to the questions "What happened? Where did everything go wrong?"