No one knows exactly why we were there. More significantly, no one can explain why so many had to die. If any one person was behind it all, could conceivably be blamed for it all, it's Robert S. McNamara, the secretary of defense under President Kennedy and later President Johnson.
Now Errol Morris, arguably the greatest living documentary filmmaker and creator of The Thin Blue Line, Fast, Cheap & Out of Control and Mr. Death, points his camera at McNamara in an effort to understand the Vietnam War. Though Morris never appears on camera and we rarely hear his voice, he is a canny interviewer, while McNamara is an experienced and squirrelly interviewee.
At one point, the 85-year-old cautions, "Never answer the question that has been asked of you; answer the question you wish had been asked of you," And this makes sense in context, given the fact that the reasons behind the war prove to be exceedingly complex.
Morris never gets anywhere near a basic explanation, nor anything resembling an apology, as many might expect. Instead, he breaks down how emotions rationality and violence combine to develop an inconceivably huge, convoluted picture.
Easily the most visual of documentary filmmakers, Morris stuffs The Fog of War with trademark images, such as constantly skewed angles of McNamara, as if even the camera could not get a grasp on the elusive nature of this topic. He also intersperses it with fascinating, sometimes downright kooky stock footage and "illustrations," and layers Philip Glass's ominous, pulsing score throughout, giving the film a tense drive.
Morris and McNamara eschew straightforward reporting, looking at events as a series of comparisons and what-ifs. Because of this analytical distance, The Fog of War could just as easily tell the tale of the current Iraq situation as that of Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis or WWII. McNamara seems to understand better than anyone how we can no sooner avoid war than we can avoid breathing. Like the scorpion that stung the frog while crossing the river, dooming them both, it's in our nature.