Filmmaker Ken Burns combines art and history once again to give the PBS audience a 15-hour documentary upon the World War II, eluding strategic and political matters, to reveal the universe of those who were in the battle and those who were waiting for them.

After his 11.5-hour “Civil War”, 18-hour “Baseball” and 19-hour “Jazz”, Burns draws high expectations from all those who entered the world he describes through cinematographic means and “The War” surely meets everybody’s eagerness to discover and to receive what Burns has created.

Burns focuses on the stories of people from four cities, Luverne, Minn.; Mobile, Ala.; Waterbury, Conn.; and Sacramento, Calif. (north, south, east, west). Apart from Luverne, that used to have circa 3,000 residents during the war, the other three were inhabited by more than 100,000 each, all of them resulting to be a rich source of documentation. More than forty stories are presented to redeem the atrocities of a war that made casualties of more than 60 million deaths.

Using a subject that resounds in different human values, like history and nation appurtenance, humanity and peace, Burns left out the usual historical protagonists of the World War, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Burns and his co-director/co-producer, Lynn Novick stressed the epic narration on ordinary people and their stories that prove extraordinary.

There are interposes between war scenes and domestic scenes, like the scene of a wedding to suggest that life went on beyond the battle scene and it was complex and it sometimes was a struggle.

However, the war images are shattering. Footages that have never been viewed until Burns’ The War will certainly impregnate not only in the retina, but also in the mind of the viewer, giving them food for thought that will last a lot longer than the 15 hours of the movie.

The documentary astonished to tears its audiences, the greatest empathy being felt, of course, in the military field. Cadets at West Point confirmed Burns once again that his story is no far-fetched or exaggerated in any aspect, comprising the feelings, the terror and hopes that everyone felt on the battle field.

The war is a debated subject that common knowledge sometimes diminishes. Seeing his documentary wakes you up in a ruthless universe, where no stability or certitude is known, a world in which death is closer than anyone knows, in which it flies a little to the left from your head or is in the air that you breathe.

 It goes further than the impressive “Schindler’s List” or any other famous production on the subject, presenting a shocking reality, of which we are unaware. The number of corpses shown is overwhelming and in other circumstances, it would be incomprehensible to use these images, however in Burns’ production, too much becomes not enough. Death and violence was everywhere and whatever the present potential implications, they existed and are legitimate to be shown.

Burns’ and Novick’s 6.5-year work will receive the recognition that it deserves and, even more important, it brings its creators the accomplishment of a good work, in their case, a masterwork.

Sometimes the narrators change, bringing Tom Hanks too to share the scenes with the viewers, but the actions follow the stories the people in the four cities told. They are those that had the direct experiences and their memory becomes the means of the documentary’s construction of image.

Hispanics brought a major objection to The War’s initial completion phase, claiming their role and demanding recognition.  28 minutes were added, inserting testimonies from two Latino war veterans and one from an American Indian.

The Burns’ War is totally worth the time watching, because it manages to tell the story of WWII to the world in an exquisite, influential and interesting manner.