True Films

Little Dieter Needs to Fly


Few lives are as dramatic as Dieter's. Born dirt poor in Germany, he was starved to eating wallpaper during the bombing of his village in WWII, endured beatings as an apprentice blacksmith, arrived penniless in America in the hopes of being a pilot, peeled potatoes for two years in the Air Force, enrolled in the Navy, got to fly in Vietnam, was shot down in Loas, endured torture and starvation in Vietnam, and escaped in a series of unbelievable adventures to return to the US as a Purple Hearted hero. This documentary by Werner Herzog retraces Dieter's life, including a journey back to Loas, where Dieter re-enacts his capture, and months of torture in a mountain prisoner of war camp. Naturally Dieter is quite a character, and his charisma is evident in this excellent portrait of an unusually observant and hardened survivor.

-- KK

Little Dieter Needs to Fly
Directed by Werner Herzog
2002, 74 min.
$18, DVD

Available from Amazon

Rentable from Netflix

Posted on April 6, 2006 at 5:00 AM | Comments (0)



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