Little Dieter Needs to Fly

When he was a boy growing up in Nazi Germany, Dieter Dengler once made eye contact with a low-flying American pilot strafing his village. From that moment, all Dieter wanted to do was fly. Unable to realize his dream in postwar Germany, he left his homeland for America at age 18 and eventually found himself flying for the Navy. Sent to Vietnam, Dieter was shot down over Laos, where he ended up being tortured as a POW before escaping through the Laotian jungle. In this interesting first-person account, wunderkind director Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre: The Wrath of God) takes his obsessive real-life subject back to some painfully familiar locations in order to better relive his harrowing experiences. Revealing production notes and a pithy Herzog bio round out this disc which features a solid transfer and serviceable sound. Recommended. (T. Rich)