For those of us who came of age during the Vietnam War, most of the war's indelible images came straight from TV and photojournalism. As Seen by Both Sides offers another, fascinating set of images of the war--those recorded by soldier/artists on both sides of the firing lines. Shot in both the U.S. and Vietnam, the video documents the development of an on-going touring exhibition, one of the first significant cultural exchanges between the two countries. The producers have been exceptionally skillful in interweaving interviews with the artists, veterans, historians and social critics (including the apparently omnipresent Noam Chomsky); fluid views of the art; and often startlingly apposite archival footage. The result is a splendidly edited and filmed video which speaks to issues far beyond the war itself: the power of art to at once reflect the culturally unique and the universal, the ability of art to effect social and political change, and the role of art as historical record. One minor criticism is that the program takes on too much in its 60 minutes (the segment featuring Chomsky expounding on art-as-propaganda, for example, could have been left on the editing room floor). Nonetheless, this is a unique and superbly engaging view of war and humanity. Recommended. (G. Handman)