zero focus

The most prevalent anti–Vietnam War motif is the recurring reference to the infamous photograph taken by Eddie Adams on February 1, 1968, which came to be known as “General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Việt Cộng prisoner in Saigon.” In the photo General Nguyễn stands to the right (screen left) of a Việt Cộng prisoner, pointing a handgun at his head. This image is restaged many times in the film, from the boys using their fingers for a gun (as early in the film as when they are on the beach in the first sequence) to pointing the gun at the stowaway Korean corporal, to the realistic mural depicting the photo-image at the end with the execution of the Korean corporal staged in the background. Considering that the film was released only two months after the photo was published one can feel the white-hot immediacy of Oshima’s film.

- David Desser / “Oshima, Korea, and 1968” (1968 and Global Cinema, 2018)