Little Dieter Needs To Fly

Werner Herzogs's War documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, is an interview with a provocative background of film imagery. The subject is the German-American pilot, Dieter Dengler, and his experience as a prisoner of war in the jungles of Vietnam that he explains was like that of being in a dream.And German filmmaker, Werner Herzog, has crafted a film-retelling of Dieter's story that suggests the presence of Dieter's subconscious world of dreams. The documentary looks naturalistic, in that parts of the documentary include authentic film footage from the Vietnam conflict and much of the interview is filmed in the actual jungle setting of Vietnam and Dieter's captivity is re-enacted with real Vietnamese people who play along as his tormentors. But artistically, Herzog's film makes the natural world into an abstract and challenges our perceptions of reality.The Vietnamese folk music is juxtaposed against images of villages being napalm-bombed. The singing voice, in the context of Dieter's experience that he called an "abstract world" becomes an angry, buzzing sound, as if Dieter's memory and narrative are unable to process his deepest nightmares.Herzog's film images and sounds are linked organically to the story, but his techniques assert that reality exists below the surface of rational thought. Film images of a hungry bear and a corpse-like dummy pilot become metaphors for death that function as instruments of film poetry. The hungry bear that pursued him, Dieter believed, represented death, which he says, intended to eat him. The U.S. NAVY's archival film footage of the dummy pilot being disassembled, in the context of the story about a pilot who is tortured physically and spiritually, also becomes an abstract of death, a plastic symbol, a corpse-like, hollow, cannibalized pilot.And the buzzing sound of the Vietnamese folk music returns later when he speaks of his nightmare in which "the entire navy" is looking for him. The buzzing music is juxtaposed with the absurd image of a single canoe, filled with quickly rowing Vietnamese villagers--and he becomes a man tormented in nightmarish isolation. When Dieter explained his rescue, he said the smell of gasoline awakened him to reality. The ethereal substance that produces vapor mirage and napalm death and that awakened him was emitting from the engine of a U.S. spotter plane.The strange and otherworldly sound of the Asian folksong became the voice of Dieter's inner demons. And the theme of human endurance becomes ambiguous, as Dieter's survival, his triumph, is linked to the misery of nightmares.At the end of the segment called "Punishment," Dieter reflects on his experience and says, "The only heroes are dead," and also states, "Death did not want me." Dieter said that his experience as an impoverished and suffering German boy in a bombed-out, post-world-war Germany prepared him for suffering, and Herzog opens the film with actual footage of the napalm bombing of Vietnamese villages and suggests that the Vietnamese guns, which swivel and shoot into the sky, are mute in comparison to Dieter's bombs. We wonder whether Dieter believes the torture he endured was deserved and is full of acceptance for his "punishment". Even years later, Dieter's past and present are linked. Night is still a haunting boundary against his daytime reality. His tattoo "dream" of white horses pursuing him is only realized in the Mott Davis Cemetery for aging, decommissioned fighter planes, primed with white paint.

beautiful look into the resilience of one man to overcome something overwhelming and remain haunted by it forever. A treasure.

it continued the life of Dieter Dengler as it ended in the story "German Boy."German Boy is a wonderful book on how it was for a small German boy, little Dieter (Dieter Dengler), to grow up in post war Germany.When I started watching this movie, I had no idea that the Little Dieter in the title was, in deed, the little boy in German Boy.Hertzog's style is in all its full glory in this film. I like the jumps back and forth in time, and the way Hertzog takes Dieter back to the very places he was captive so that Dieter can say exactly how he felt at the time.It was rather touching the way Dieter told one of the Laotian's that it was okay, comforting him, and trying to keep him from being afraid.Such a caring man.BTW, there was a feature film made about Dieter Dengler's experiences when he was shot down in his U.S. Navy AD-6 Skyraider, also produced by Hertzog, called "Rescue Dawn" which actually dramatically demonstrates all the things Dieter Dengler went through as a captive including his friend getting his head chopped off. It is also a very good movie.I saw that on [...] but I bet amazon.com (my favorite retailer) has it for sale at a good price.

Awesome film

Herzog is well-known in international cinema, but his documentaries seem underseen and underrated. I think the man is a genius and deserves to be right up there with Ken Burns, Erroll Morris, and other big names.If Stanley Kubrick made documentaries, he would make them like Herzog. Herzog assembles gripping visuals, (yeah it's true that he does insert his own manipulations on occasion, but the end does justifies the means) , haunting and well-chosen music. Herzog is a sensitive, complex artist who is a gift to the world of cinema (drama and documentary alike)

A great compliment to the movie "Rescue Dawn" (2007). This documentary is about the only US/Vietnam-era POW to successfully escape (read Dengler's story in "Escape From Laos"). The childish title doesn't do justice to the story. Werner Herzog did a great job on this documentary--going on-locations to film the scenes and using realistic recreation of events by hiring locals. The story includes references to Eugene DeBruin, a fellow POW. In "Rescue Dawn," DeBruin was unjustly cast as a bad character. In fact, DeBruin sacrificed his chance at freedom by staying behind to care for an ill fellow escapee. This documentary places DeBruin in the correct characterization. Herzog illustrated how incredibly difficult the terrain and weather was for Dengler's escape, and the consequences of capture and execution. I especially appreciated the touching epilog about Dieter's Arlington burial--rich with the full US Navy military burial honors. This is a fitting documentary about an amazing man.

A wonderfully rendered documentary by Werner Herzog, chronicling the little known story of a man who Death did not want. This is an amazing tale of survival, against the most impossible of odds!Dieter Dengler grew up in Post WW II Germany under the most horrid conditions and hardships, which shaped him and hardened him for the troubles that lay ahead. Forced to boil old wallpaper for the nutrients it held, and later interned to a clockmaker who would force him to work long hours, beating him when he made mistakes, Dengler seems strangely unjaded by his experiences.As soon as he could, Dengler immigrated to the United States where he enrolled in the Navy as a pilot, and was soon flying missions over Laos and Vietnam.This is a survivor's story. This is the story of a man's indomitable spirit, and the unquenchable will to survive. You will watch this film and be amazed, changed, and come to glimpse the incredible power of the human will to not only survive, but overcome and thrive!

Werner Herzog is a brilliant director and I would thoroughky recommend this film and any of Werner's films to you if you enjoy a well crafted documentary. This director never gets in the way of his subject.

Pure joy in a box. An extraordinary man's amazing story. inspirational and important.

THX

'Little Dieter Needs to Fly' - Absolutely wonderful ... a great little film and a true story to boot!Drew.

The most inspiational film I have ever seen. If you feel sad or unhappy with your life this film will take you to another better place.