Sunday Afternoon Netflix Documentary: The Fog of War

After subscribing to Netflix, I found myself watching a wide range of documentaries on the service and I eventually got into the habit of watching them on Sunday Afternoons.  So far I’ve watched films such as Bowling for Columbine, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Super Size Me, Who Killed the Electric Car, and The King of Kong.

I have now decided to expand these viewing habits into a weekly blog column, where I will post some brief thought on the documentary I watched (as well as provide the Netflix link to the film).

For this week, I have chosen Errol Morris‘ Oscar-winning documentary The Fog of War.

The Fog of War centres around Robert McNamara, who was U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.  The film has McNamara reflecting on the lessons he learned on warfare, as he handled both the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War.

This was the third Errol Morris documentary I’ve watched, having previously seen The Thin Blue Line and Standard Operating Procedure. 

The Fog of War is more a straight forward documentary in its use of mainly archive footage instead of the reenactments present in the other two films.  However, I could still tell it was an Errol Morris through its very dramatic score, as well as Morris’ trademark “Interrotron” interview technique.

It was definitely an enjoyable documentary and I can see why it won Morris an Oscar.

10/10