Conspiracy and concealment are the twelve cents in fictional movies (thriller, political drama, you name it). But when the documentary unveils the plot, it can withstand the suspense of films that have been and rarely made. (The 70s era of the conspiracy films at the height of the conspiracy films, about 10,000 conspiracy films.)

"Ring beam" is a documentary mystery about a deadly serious subject: the real author of the famous Vietnam War photograph taken in the town of Trảng Bàng on June 8, 1972, which shows the consequences of the Napalm attack - 9----- The year-old girl named phanthįkimphúc ran, running naked towards the camera, her arms stretched out like wings, and her mouth opened with painful screams. She was burned all over her body (the camera showed four other children running with her in clothes), and from the moment the world entered the world, she was looked at by billions of people at the "Napalm Girl". Transparent This is one of the most iconic and devastating images of war horrors ever.

The “Naplam Girl” is considered a photograph of inestimable historical importance, which has had a profound impact on people’s feelings about the Vietnam War. (It is usually said that this photo helps end the war; I would say it is an exaggeration.) But who took the photo? The day after being shot, when it was sent from the Associated Press's Saigon office, it was found to Nick, a 21-year-old Vietnamese photographer. Almost overnight, the photos changed his life. From that moment on, he was celebrated for taking one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.

But by Bao Nguyen (“The Greatest Night in Pop”) and by Gary Knigh (Gary Knigh, whose guide and interviewer on camera) claimed that Nickút was no The person taking the photo. On that desolate road in TrảngBàng that day, as well as other cinematographers and photographers. But the documentary asserted that the photo was taken by Nguyen Thanh Nghe, a freelance photographer who contributed the photo to the AP. He was there that day, too.

The movie's statement about what happened is relatively simple. It says Saigon's Associated Press photo editor Horst FAAS knew NGHE took the photo, but after paying him $20 for standard $20, the FAAS order attributed the shooting to Nickút, because He wants it to be an AP employee photo. According to the movie, this kind of thing happens all the time and is not a big deal. This is part of the “benevolent” exploitation system. But with this photo of power and amplitude, regaining (if it happens) proves important.

It is my job to say whether I think the movie is good or not, and now let me say "Ringer" is a very good movie: violent, urgent, absorbed. But in this case, it's not that simple. The whole movie revolves around a binary question: Did Nick (found) take that photo? Or nguyen than h nghe? Without judging its central argument, it is essentially a conspiracy theory: the credit of the photo is stolen, and it has been covered up for 50 years, and it is impossible to evaluate the film's evaluation in any meaningful way. If that was what happened, it would be a scandal, a tragedy, and perhaps a crime.

The photographer himself Gary Knight led the investigation, but the key figure in the film was Carl Robinson, who was an AP photo editor at the time. Robinson, now in his eighties, said he was the man whom his boss Horst Faas ordered him to do so. He claimed that he sat on this secret, and his silent guilt lasted for 50 years.

Why didn't he say anything? This means shaking the ship to the tenth momentum. Throw grenades into the middle of sensitive cultural heritage; destroy the lives of all those who lie about it; among other things, he will have to fight against AP, a news agency that strongly protects his legacy. The Associated Press conducted a six-month investigation into the case, which involved interviews with seven witnesses, concluded that there was no conspiracy, no exchange of photograph sources - Nick was actually a photographer. The Associated Press has raised a major objection to the "Ringer" and Nick found it threatens to take legal action against the filmmakers.

For a time, I looked at the "routine beam" and was skeptical of its claims. This is partly because of the film, rather than taking the “Oh, let’s look into this” attitude, but stolen from the out-of-the-box viewing camera. The film collects evidence, but seems to have made up its mind. This keeps me on my guard. Meanwhile, I listened to Carl Robinson telling his story (credit about being ordered to forge photos), not only is the story convincing, but a question hovering: what is his motive for lie? The stories he told made him look bad. Fox Butterworth, a New York Times reporter who believes the film's paper is untrue, said he thinks Robinson is lying in the animus of his old employer, APP. He parted ways with him in 1978. Like a stretch. You made this story Now47 years later, will all avenge the organizations you worked for decades ago?

Nick Sun (found) refused to be interviewed by the filmmaker (which could be a sign of something), and most of the "Ringer" dedicated to discovering the identities of "other" photographers. At the beginning of the movie, they don't know who he is, or even if he is dead or alive. "Ring beam" becomes a detective story. Carl Robinson's wife is Vietnamese, who claims that a public secret among Vietnamese photographers 50 years ago was that the photos of "Napram Girls" were attributed to "Napram Girls" photo. When the name nguyen thanh nghe finally surfaces, we begin to feel some catharsis caused by the suspense drama. Filmmakers made his decades of residence in Nghe, California, and they filled his biography. Finally, Gary Knight sat down with him and we heard his version of the event.

There is no conclusive evidence for NGHE's memory. However, as viewers, we brought him into him - a man from the early 90s, with brilliant sincerity, his learning was very complete, and he firmly believed that he was the one who took the photo, yes, yes, yes, It was taken away. We asked ourselves again: If this is not the truth, then why did this old man lie? He has no desire for controversy or glory. Why does his version of the event go hand in hand with Carl Robinson's event? There is a troubling detail in Nghe's story: He says Horst Faas gave him a copy of the photo he took on that fateful day, and then nghe took it away, his The wife was so upset that she destroyed it. Later, it may be a proof of his author's identity.

Like any conspiracy thriller, "Ringer" makes us think believe. This is part of the essence of the movie. Yet my cynical skeptics can’t see this dramatic impulse as something certain. Watching a documentary like this, we end up wanting not emotions, or even a very feasible argument. What we want is proof. We want it to watch as citizens a film about tough photography artifacts. We want to be moviegoers in a weird way, who are confined to the conspiracy cinema for more than half a century, expecting a scene that eventually climaxes in smoking guns.

Guess what? I would say there is almost one "randal beam". Halfway through the film, we see all the key photos taken in a terrible few minutes along the road of TrảngBàng, just after the village area behind it was bombarded (wrongly) by South Vietnamese Air Force attackers. (Yes, the attack on the "Napam Girl" was a "friendly fire" incident, and the U.S. military did not involve it.) 8 x 10 photos were assembled on the table and you might recall Brian de Parr The sequence of "Brave" by Brian de Palma is there, and the voice portrait played by John Travolta, like the Zapruder movie, brings a bunch of still photos into a rough 20-second piece of Dynamic lens. (Nothing, I kept finding that scene was the moment I looked at it from "Brave", which is a movie I really disliked. Because mainstream magazines are how far out of reach of stills published in Zapruder-type movies. , release Enough Can you actually take stills from a short film? )

However, the sequence of photos in the "Ringer Beam" proves to be just an appetizer. The filmmakers handed all this material to a team of forensic experts in Paris who performed consistent computer-based analysis and combined satellite imagery where the numbers stood precisely in those critical minutes of TrảngBàng. At the climax of the movie, they do the analysis, which is really like combing through the Zapruder movie, looking for key visual details that will suddenly bring the hidden reality to attention.

We see photos of what happened - Kim Phúc follows the road (we also see it in the color shots we took). We see the cameraman there. We saw the photos they took. All of this must be tracked in a time-space manner.

The analysis ultimately reveals a character, standing far away, probably 60 feet from Kim Phúc's road - in other words, too far to take pictures of "Napam Girls". The forensic team claimed that the number was Nick. We then showed us several photos, which were exactly where. Here is the kicker: These photos are AP photos, thanks to Nick finding. He brought them. This shows that when it comes to "Napam Girl", he can't be in the right place at the right time. "Ring beam" is a powerful human story that resonates with a daunting cultural resonance. But, like all conspiracy scenes, it plays a clean obsession with reality. It's worth a look - because of the important truths that exist in it, and its addictive appeal.