The People vs. Agent Orange is a documentary film which premiered on French television (ARTE) in 2020 and on US television (PBS) in 2021.
It is an episode of the long-running program Independent Lens (season 22 episode 15).
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Directors: Alan Adelson and Kate Taverna
** Writers: Alan Adelson, Kate Taverna and Veronique Bernard
** Run time: 87 minutes
INTRODUCTION
Agent Orange is a chemical product which was used by American forces in Vietnam from 1962 to 1971.
The product was sprayed from the air; from airplanes and helicopters which were flying at a low altitude over the Vietnamese jungle.
The product is a defoliant. The purpose was to damage and destroy the vegetation on the ground. If the leaves of the trees could fall off, the Vietnamese resistance fighters would no longer be able to hide in the jungle.
Operation Ranch Hand was a case of chemical warfare conducted by American forces against Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.
According to Monsanto, the American company which produced the product, it was only dangerous to plants and not dangerous to people.
The US government decided to believe this claim, even though it is obvious it is false.
Spraying Agent Orange for a decade caused much damage to the environment and to the people who lived in the areas affected.
While the product is no longer sprayed over Vietnam, the effects of the operation is still felt; not only in Vietnam, but also in the US.
American soldiers who were involved in the operation were told that it was harmless. They did not handle the product with appropriate caution.
They were often exposed to the product and many of them suffered for years.
In fact, some of them are still suffering today, many years after the war in Vietnam came to an end.
THE CAST
Several persons are interviewed in the film. Here are the names of the participants (divided into three groups):
# 1. In the US
** Dr James Clary – Air Force scientist (retired)
** Thomas “Tom” Daschle – a politician, Former Senate Majority Leader
** Jonathan Moore – a human rights lawyer
** Peter Sills – a lawyer, author of Toxic War: The Story of Agent Orange (2014)
** Dr Renee Stringham – a retired physician, Oregon
** Carol Van Strum – an environmentalist and an author
** Dr Susan Swift – organized a health study in a small town in the US
** Judge Jack Weinstein (1921-2021) – presided over the Agent Orange Settlement Fund (1984-1997)
** David Zierler – author of The Invention of Ecocide (2011)
# 2. In Vietnam
** Tran To Nga – an activist and an author
** Kieu Xuan Long – husband of Tran To Nga
# 3. In France
** André Bouny – a painter and an author
** William Bourdon – a lawyer
THE PLOT
This film covers the past and the present.
The past is the time when Agent Orange was sprayed over Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
The present is the time after the war. The present is the legal battles and the investigations which were conducted in Vietnam, in the US and in France by people who were victims of the chemical product and their lawyers.
Some cases have been settled. Other cases are still pending, because the victims refuse to give up the struggle for justice.
I am not going to say more about them here. I do not wish to spoil the viewing for anyone.
Watch this film to learn about this topic and about the people who are working to secure justice for the victims of Operation Ranch Hand.
RATINGS AND REVIEWS
What do reviewers say about this film?
On IMDb it has a rating of 75 percent, which corresponds to 3.8 stars on Amazon.
There are six user reviews on IMDb. Here are the ratings and the headlines:
80 – Horror of war
80 – Well-made and very disturbing
80 – Savage, but beautiful
100 – Shocking! Horrifying!
100 – Everybody needs to watch this
100 – Vietnam War = Mutilations, mass murder
As you can see, these reviews offer ratings which are higher than the average rating on the website.
On Rotten Tomatoes it has a rating of 100 percent which corresponds to five stars on Amazon.
On Amazon there are at the moment 13 global ratings and five global reviews. The average rating is 4.3 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 86 percent.
Here are the details:
5 stars = 72 percent
4 stars = no reviews
3 stars = 17 percent
2 stars = 10 percent
1 star = no reviews
I understand the numerous positive reviews and I agree with them. This film is a powerful document about an important topic. The story of Agent Orange deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done very well.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
REFERENCES
# 1. Books
Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts by Peter H. Schuck (1986) (1988)
Agent Orange: Collateral Damage in Vietnam by Philip Jones Griffith (2003) (2004)
Agent Orange, Vietnam Apocalypse by André Bouny (with a preface by Howard Zinn) (2010) (this book is in French)
The Invention of Ecocide by David Zierler (2011)
Scorched Earth: Legacies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam by Fred Wilcox (2011)
Toxic war: The Story of Agent Orange by Peter Sills (2014)
Poisoning the Pacific: The US Military’s Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange by Jon Mitchell (with a foreword by John W. Dower) (2020)
# 2. Articles available online
Donald Barlett and James B. Steele, “Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear,” Vanity Fair, 2 April 2008
Sharon Lerner, “100,000 Pages of Chemical Industry Secrets Gathered Dust in an Oregon Barn for Decades – Until Now,” The Intercept, 26 July 2017
Charles Dunst, “The US’s Toxic Agent Orange Legacy,” The Atlantic, 20 July 2019
# 3. Websites
A Continuing Legacy of the Vietnam War
A website created by Carol Van Strum
# 4. Film and Video
Vietnam: The Secret Agent (1983)
** Director: Jacki Ochs
** Run time = 56 minutes
** Available on YouTube
Unnatural Causes (1986)
** A historical drama made for television (NBC)
** Director: Lamont Johnson
** Run time = 104 minutes
** Available on YouTube
Agent Orange: 30 Years Later (2008)
** Director: John Trinh
** Run time = 56 minutes
Silent Exposure: A Personal Agent Orange & Vietnam War Story (2014)
** Directors: Christopher Nostrand and Kayoko Nakamura
** Run time = 17 minutes
** Available on YouTube
The Dark Shadow of Agent Orange (2014)
** Retro Report: The New York Times
** Run time = 10 minutes
** Available on YouTube
The Vietnam War’s Agent Orange Legacy (2017)
** Unreported World
** Run time = 23 minutes
** Available on You Tube
The Man with the Wooden Face (2017)
** Moviehead Pictures
** Run time = 16 minutes
** Available on YouTube
Sprayed (2017)
** Director: Craig Leon
** Run time = 39 minutes
** Available via Amazon Prime Video
The Horrific Impact of Agent Orange in Vietnam (2019)
** Journeyman Pictures
** Run time ´20 minutes
** Available on YouTube
*****
Operation Ranch Hand (1962-1971)
An American helicopter
spraying Agent Orange
over the Vietnamese jungle
*****
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