To make this film, Ivens and his collaborator Marceline Loridan lived for two months with Vietnamese villagers and soldiers at the line dividing North and South Vietnam-the seventeenth parallel. Sharing the homes, food, and dangers of their hosts, living underground during relentless bombing by American planes, the filmmakers established an intimate relationship with the local community. Stylistically this is something of a departure from Ivens's earlier films, combining direct and synchronized sound and using less dramatic montage techniques. However, like many of Ivens's other films, The 17th Parallel offers a remarkable portrait of grassroots resistance and survival against all odds.