Little Dieter
Posted by Chris S.
Wow. The least-attended day of the festival (zero and counting!) proves to be one of the very best. Little Dieter Needs to Fly is one of the most affecting documentary films I've ever seen. And I didn't even get to see it all! (A pomegranate tried to kill my Throbbing Gristle T-shirt, so I had to run out to the dry cleaners mid-way through) The power and resolution of the man as he recounts his gristly fate in the 1960s, being tortured and imprisoned in Vietnam, even TRAVELING to Vietnam and showing us how he was run through the jungle by his captors ("Okay, this is hitting a little close to home," he says, his hands bound and dressed in uniform, Vietnamese men with rifles running in front and behind him. "I thought maybe doing this would chase the demons away for good, but you have no idea how my heart pounds right now"), showing us how he was chained to his fellow prisoners, showing us the stockpile of food he has hidden beneath his house in a secret panel (who of us has the foresight to pack 200 pounds of rice in case of emergency?)...it's a very intense experience.
However, Dieter never comes off as either bitter or incapacitated. Yes, he is haunted. Yes, he speaks of years after the ordeal where his friends were scared of him, and how he could only feel comfortable sleeping in an airplane cockpit ("the only place I felt safe"). But Dieter, at the core of it, is an unbelieveably gentle, giving, generous human being (at least, that's the side of him the documentary shows...no 75 minutes of film can show all facets of a person). I'm not ashamed to say that I teared up a bit during the final sequence, when "Little Dieter" gets his wish, a vision of "all the world, covered by airplanes." And then again, during the postscript, when we see Dieter's military funeral (I've since read that Lou Gerhig's Disease struck quickly and took him in no time), complete with F-14s flying over his grave as a salute. Truly a hard film to forget.
And again...YOU MISSED IT, BITCHES!!!!!
My Best Fiend in 10!!
Wow. The least-attended day of the festival (zero and counting!) proves to be one of the very best. Little Dieter Needs to Fly is one of the most affecting documentary films I've ever seen. And I didn't even get to see it all! (A pomegranate tried to kill my Throbbing Gristle T-shirt, so I had to run out to the dry cleaners mid-way through) The power and resolution of the man as he recounts his gristly fate in the 1960s, being tortured and imprisoned in Vietnam, even TRAVELING to Vietnam and showing us how he was run through the jungle by his captors ("Okay, this is hitting a little close to home," he says, his hands bound and dressed in uniform, Vietnamese men with rifles running in front and behind him. "I thought maybe doing this would chase the demons away for good, but you have no idea how my heart pounds right now"), showing us how he was chained to his fellow prisoners, showing us the stockpile of food he has hidden beneath his house in a secret panel (who of us has the foresight to pack 200 pounds of rice in case of emergency?)...it's a very intense experience.
However, Dieter never comes off as either bitter or incapacitated. Yes, he is haunted. Yes, he speaks of years after the ordeal where his friends were scared of him, and how he could only feel comfortable sleeping in an airplane cockpit ("the only place I felt safe"). But Dieter, at the core of it, is an unbelieveably gentle, giving, generous human being (at least, that's the side of him the documentary shows...no 75 minutes of film can show all facets of a person). I'm not ashamed to say that I teared up a bit during the final sequence, when "Little Dieter" gets his wish, a vision of "all the world, covered by airplanes." And then again, during the postscript, when we see Dieter's military funeral (I've since read that Lou Gerhig's Disease struck quickly and took him in no time), complete with F-14s flying over his grave as a salute. Truly a hard film to forget.
And again...YOU MISSED IT, BITCHES!!!!!
My Best Fiend in 10!!
posted at 4:05 PM
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