
An unconventional essay film that interrogates the visual and ideological legacy of the Vietnam War. Blending staged scenes, archival footage, photographs, and philosophical dialogue, the film follows various characters — including an American soldier captured by North Vietnamese villagers — as they reflect on violence, memory, and image-making. Set partly in West Berlin and partly in reconstructed spaces representing Vietnam, the film avoids traditional dramatic narrative in favor of a fragmented montage of voices, documents, and reenactments. Interweaving love stories, political debate, and historical commentary, Farocki creates a critical reflection on how war is represented, seen, and imagined, both in cinema and in public consciousness. The result is a complex meditation on images as weapons and instruments of perception.

An unconventional essay film that interrogates the visual and ideological legacy of the Vietnam War. Blending staged scenes, archival footage, photographs, and philosophical dialogue, the film follows various characters — including an American soldier captured by North Vietnamese villagers — as they reflect on violence, memory, and image-making. Set partly in West Berlin and partly in reconstructed spaces representing Vietnam, the film avoids traditional dramatic narrative in favor of a fragmented montage of voices, documents, and reenactments. Interweaving love stories, political debate, and historical commentary, Farocki creates a critical reflection on how war is represented, seen, and imagined, both in cinema and in public consciousness. The result is a complex meditation on images as weapons and instruments of perception.
1982-01-24
7
6.4The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.
7.7As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
6.3A conflict develops between a troubled Vietnam veteran and the sister he lives with when she becomes involved romantically with the army buddy who reminds him of the tragic battle they both survived.
6.6An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
5.8Set in a warm summer in 1990 in former East Germany, it follows a young woman who begins a relationship with a charismatic farmer who is twice her age.
6.3Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
6.5In a small North German village a drama played out during and shortly after the Second World War about duty versus individual conscience and morality.
6.6A sweeping drama set in the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, where the life of top UN diplomat Brazilian Sérgio Vieira de Mello hangs in the balance during the most treacherous mission of his career.
6.9On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, a poet and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.
6.7Early morning silence is broken by screeching tires as a helicopter bears down on a speeding vehicle. Taking a quick corner, the team tumbles out into the woods as their car pulls away. Now they must make their way through the thick of nature and thick gunfire to accomplish their mission. Not a single word of dialogue is spoken throughout the entire film. Instead, the music, sounds, images and deeply truthful acting turn a simple plot into an intense experience. Passion and intrigue keep building to the very end.
5.8A man struggles with the tragic memories of his past to make sense of his present, but soon realizes that time isn't the enemy he thinks it is.
6.6A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
6.2While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
7.2A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
5.8The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
6.5An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
6.2After the wild lifestyle of a famous young German photographer almost gets him killed, he goes to Palermo, Sicily to take a break. Can the beautiful city and a beautiful local woman calm him down?
6.2Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.