UNDER THE WIRE (2018, doc)

November 15, 2018

 Greetings again from the darkness. With release dates so close together, this documentary from director Christopher Martin makes a superb companion piece to director Matthew Heineman’s film, A PRIVATE WAR – the Marie Colvin biopic with an excellent performance by Rosamund Pike. Heineman’s film really helps us understand what drove Ms. Colvin to become the most courageous and well-known war correspondent of her time, while Martin’s doc provides an incredibly up-close look at the dangerous environment that inspired her reports.

In February 2012, Ms. Colvin and photographer Paul Conroy were smuggled into Syria (journalists were prohibited at the time) and found their way to Baba Amr, an area of Homs, Syria. What they discovered was horrific. What the Assad regime was doing to its own people, its own children, was not what Marie and Paul had known as war. Instead they described it as slaughter. They were determined that “the world must see”, and for the next few days, they discovered “The Widows Basement” where women and children were trapped. They watched a relentless Dr. Mohamed desperately try to stitch the injured back together in a makeshift clinic with minimal supplies.

The film is based on the book of the same title by Paul Conroy. On the day the bombing killed Marie and French photographer Remi Ochlik, and many other civilians, it was Paul and French correspondent Edith Bouvier who survived, despite serious injuries. Mr. Conroy acts as our commentator as much of the footage he shots plays on screen. He admits to carrying the weight and responsibility of telling not just Marie’s story, but also the truth about what they witnessed … it’s a brutal war that continues today.

Some reenactments are blended with Conroy’s footage, and we fully understand the terror they felt in entering the drain pipe that acted as the artery to Baba Amr. The infamous clip of the dying baby shown on Anderson Cooper’s CNN interview with Ms. Colvin is no less devastating now. Paul admits that some described Marie as “scarier than the war we are covering”, but no one doubted her courage and drive to tell the stories of those who were being forgotten. As the Sunday Times war correspondent recognizable by her eye patch, Marie’s work with Paul is the best defense possible for our need for truthful and full journalistic coverage … it should be our protection against forces motivated to mislead or misdirect. Paul’s commentary of his extraction from Syria reinforces what courage is required not just to rush to the story, but also to find a way to tell it.

watch the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwIkE7CTWfw

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Posted by David Ferguson

A PRIVATE WAR (2018)

November 10, 2018

 Greetings again from the darkness. Marie Colvin was a (seemingly) fearless war correspondent obsessed with giving a voice to those forgotten during war. Were she alive today, she could not have hand-picked a better filmmaker than Matthew Heineman to tell her story. Director Heineman was Oscar nominated for CARTEL LAND (2014) and, combined with his CITY OF GHOSTS (2017), gives him two of the best ever documentaries that show what the front lines are like in both international wars and the equally dangerous wars being fought over drug territories. Heineman has carried his own camera directly into the center of those storms, while Ms. Colvin took her pen and pad. Simpatico.

Based on Marie Brenner’s Vanity Fair article “Marie Colvin’s Private War” (screenplay by Arash Amel), the film benefits from the extraordinary and courageous work of Ms. Colvin, and also a terrific performance from Rosamund Pike (words I’ve not previously written). Ms. Pike captures the extremes of Ms. Colvin’s life – the atrocities of war and the self-prescribed treatment of her PTSD through vodka, and does so in a manner that always seems believable. She lets us in to a world most of us can’t imagine.

As a war correspondent for Britain’s Sunday Times (since 1986), Ms. Colvin told the stories we’d rather not know. In her words, “I saw it, so you don’t have to.” The film begins with a stunning overhead view of 2012 war-ravaged Homs Syria (destruction courtesy of Assad’s soldiers) – a place that starts the film and later ends the story. We then flash back to 2001 London so we can witness Marie in society and struggling with a personal relationship. She then chooses, against her editor’s (Tom Hollander) guidance to cover Sri Lanka. It’s a decision that cost her an eye, while also providing her recognition as the eye-patch wearing female war reporter.

In 2003, a tip takes her to a previously undiscovered mass grave site in Fallujah. This is her first work alongside photographer Paul Conroy (played by Jamie Dornan). Having “seen more war than most soldiers”, Ms. Colvin’s severe alcoholism can’t kill the nightmares, visions, and PTSD. After time in a clinic, she returns to work. We see her in 2009 Afghanistan and then pulling no punches when interviewing Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. During these assignments, we learn much about Ms. Colvin’s personality and approach. She is rarely without a cigarette, admits to wearing Le Perla lingerie (and why), carries Martha Gellhorn’s “The Face of War” as her field manual, and wins two British Foreign Journalist of the Year awards – though seeing her at the banquets is quite surreal.

Hollander’s subtle performance as news editor Sean Ryan is also quite impressive. He fears for her safety (and even questions her sanity) but is in constant conflict with the need to sell newspapers – something Ms. Colvin’s stories certainly did. Stanley Tucci has a role as Tony Shaw, her love interest, but despite her words, we never believe he and his sailboat are ever more than a distraction from her obsession with the front lines. The final sequence in 2012 Homs Syria is stunning, as is her final interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN.

Ms. Pike has altered her voice to mimic the deeper tone of Marie Colvin – her efforts confirmed in the final interview played at the film’s end. It’s quite a career boost for Ms. Pike, who has previously been known for playing ice queens in films like GONE GIRL. She captures the traumatized Marie, but also the obsession of someone whose DNA constantly drove her back to the stories that needed to be told.

Director Heineman’s unique perspective combined with the cinematography of 3 time Oscar winner Robert Richardson (a favorite of Scorcese, Tarantino, and Oliver Stone) delivers a realism of war that we rarely see on screen. Mr. Richardson also shot SALVADOR (1986) and PLATOON (1986) and his work here surpasses both. The film gives us a glimpse at the psychological effects of such reporting, and a feel for the constant stress of being surrounded by tragedy and danger. This is fitting tribute to a courageous and very skilled woman, although I do wish the men weren’t constantly helping her out of trucks and jeeps.

watch the trailer:

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Posted by David Ferguson