War Photographer (2001): *** out of ****
Directed by Christian Frei. Featuring James Nachtwey, Christaine Amanpour, Hans-Hermann Klare and Christaine Breustedt.
by Andy Keast
Early on in "War Photographer," it's subject, James Nachtwey, didn't not come across as all that fascinating: his speech is monotonous and he has difficulty articulating himself. Gradually the film revealed that that is entirely the point, portraying Nachtwey as a man humbled and silenced by the things he had seen. One of the first sequences you see in the film is Nachtwey stoically snapping away photos of a woman screaming and crying over the death of her son, and the way he remains game-faced throughout is just…odd.
"In a war…the normal codes of civilized behavior are suspended," Nachtwey says, and the movie is good at portraying what exactly a photojournalist must do. As a result, a lot of the images Nachtwey captures are amazing, retaining a power in a way that perhaps only a diary could: Endless arrays of hollowed houses. Massacre sights in Rwanda. Children helming defunct tanks in Kosovo. The film also features the recollections of German publisher Hans-Hermann Klare, who tells of James' ability to remain robotically calm while bullets are flying: "Most journalists are in a hurry to get out."
"War Photographer" was directed Christian Frei, who was able to somehow invisibly follow Nachtwey around the world as he catalogs misery. It was shot by Peter Indergand on high-definition digital video, and Frei uses fiberoptics attached to Nachtwey's camera in order to see what he sees as he works. For something that was nominated for an Academy Award, at times it does play more like a PBS special rather than a feature.
This is a very quiet and disquieting movie. The music by Arvo Pärt uses low, minimalist notes and projects melancholy as Nachtwey talks about what he does. When a journalist's life is constantly at risk and is routinely surrounded by dead bodies in the streets, poisons in the air and extreme poverty, I imagine it's conducive to your occupation that you distance yourself emotionally. I could only think: *How odd it must be.* CNN correspondent Christaine Amanpour, a friend of Nachtwey, may have the most revealing statement in the movie when she says: "He has his own library of suffering in his head."
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