Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry

Absorbing.

The most powerful and telling image is a black-and-white still of Kerry burying his face in his arms after he threw his ribbons onto the Capitol steps; it's a moment true enough to cost him the presidency.

His film is pro-Kerry, yes, but the focus is on history, not polemics, and provides a record of the crucial role of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

A clearly partisan effort -- director George Butler is a longtime Kerry friend and supporter -- the film is nonetheless bound to have some political impact, thanks to its powerful depiction of the young Kerry.

Going Upriver is a small, valuable contribution to the continuing project of sorting out and making sense of Vietnam, a war that, among other things, opened a fissure at the heart of American liberalism that has yet to heal.

The film leaves the viewer with a more vivid sense of Kerry the man, portraying him as admirable, if not lovable.

It underscores, with ample footage from his rallying speeches and his 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, just how important it was for the antiwar movement to be represented by someone like Kerry.