La ciel, la terre

The first of Ivens’ films about the Vietnam war and ahead of its time, The Sky, the Land is a propaganda reportage, shot with a local troupe, in favour of the Vietnamese people's fight against the Americans. The plan of the work recalls the Earth of Spain: on one side the war and battles, on the other the daily life on the front. The viewpoint is strongly biased, without any ambiguity. The commentary to the film is read by Ivens’ himself. “I saw Madrid during the Spanish Civil War and Havana during the Revolution's fever. I saw many other cities where people were getting ready to fight: none of them was so calm as Hanoi that morning on June 14th 1965”. Made of both heterogeneous materials about current events and shots on location, the documentary was edited in Paris where it became known as an “agitprop film”. Ivens personally organized and followed its distribution, turning every screening into a moment of political debate. This experience will lead him to make his next film The Seventeenth Parallel.