Many strategies are jam-packed into the first three minutes of this film. Just by this fact, we can tell that the director was trying to portray an important message.
One of the strategies at play was the way that different images were shown on screen at the same time, using a faded, layered look. This was very apparent when the face of a man was layered with an image of a jungle. A few seconds later the image of a rotating helicopter blade is layered along with the other images already shown. At this point it becomes difficult to know which of the images is the foreground or which is supposed to be the image we should fix our eyes to, which we should focus on. This, I believe, is what is important and profound about the strategy. The Vietnam War did make the general populace question which aspect of the war to focus on: the soldiers, the people and land of Vietnam, or the honor of war. Of course, this is just three aspects of a multi-layered subject, but this aspect of the film makes us as viewers question what is important: what really is the focus of this reality?
Another strategy that I believe was profound was the use of sound in this clip. Throughout the clip, we can hear the rotation of the helicopter blade incessantly droning over the music playing in the background. Towards the end, the sound of the blade chopping morphs into the sound of the ceiling fan. This morphing of two sounds somewhat makes the audience question their reality. What was the noise all along? Not only this, but the ceiling fan was positioned in the soldier's (or atleast who we can presume is a soldier) room. The noise of the fan is the first thing that he wakes up to, the first thing he sees as we wakes up is the fan. This represents that the war is always with him. He can always here the chopping blades of helicopters. No matter if you're in Saigon, America, or the battle field, the war will always be with this man.
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