After terrorists destroyed one icon of America’s power — the World Trade Center — the nation responded with another. Veteran German non-fiction filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky’s B-52 ponders the history and future of the huge transcontinental bomber now at work pounding the Taliban, from its origins on the drawing board in 1948, at the beginning of the Cold War, to the vast graveyards in the Arizona desert where defunct planes await recycling.

Bitomsky’s technique ranges between that of Frederick Wiseman and Werner Herzog, his vérité spiked by a piquant personal presence. He’s on hand, a burly Fassbinderian presence, for many of the interviews, most with military officials and historians but some also with the targets of the terrible machines (a large segment is about the bombing of Hanoi). There’s also a voiceover narrative that at times puts a dubious political spin on things (claiming, for example, that the current military emphasis on destroying objects and sparing people means that human life is therefore regarded as " meaningless " ). The profound beauty of the beast shines through, however. An installation artist who works with B-52 parts describes the big bird as a " palimpsest " of American culture and history; Bitomsky’s film is a key to reading it.