4. Winter Soldier (1972)
Winter Soldier is a documentary film made by the Winter Collective about atrocities committed by American soldiers in the Vietnam war. Basically it features a bunch of young men miked up at a table giving evidence of the things they did and witnessed in Vietnam. They assert that they were not trained in the codes of the Geneva Convention concerning treatment of enemy civilians. They also assert they were taught to think of all Vietnamese people - Viet Cong or not - as 'gooks' - thus blurring the line between civilian and combatant. Villages were indiscriminately torched to the ground, Vietnamese people were thrown out of helicopters, children were blown away for flipping the bird to a group of US soldiers. Other hideous acts were perpetrated and it all seemed to come from above in the chain of command - the obsession with body count (the way they measured success) engendered a kill happy atmosphere in the soldiers actually fighting the war resulting in tragedies like the Me Lai massacre. It is tough to watch these haunted young men speak their truth with such honesty and bravery. They paint a nightmare portrait and they all look visibly spooked from their experiences in Vietnam. Ignored by television stations and film critics at the time, Winter Soldier has been critically reappraised as a documentary masterpiece and a very powerful anti-war statement.