a private war...

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Matthew Heineman’s film ‘A Private War’, chronicling the life and career of war correspondent Marie Colvin (superbly played by Rosamund Pike)(I think I’m quietly in love with her!). You will no doubt be aware of some of Colvin’s work for The Sunday Times over a period of some 17 years, until her death in Syria at the Siege of Homs in 2012 (and her eyepatch, after losing the sight of her left eye in a bomb blast in Sri Lanka in 2001).  
It’s a film that pulls no punches about the horrors of war.
It’s chaotic, stark, frightening and tense film which makes you wonder how on earth people are prepared to put their lives on the line in order to report the truth. War journalists and photographers are clearly a very special breed. The film captures a palpable sense of danger and fear.
Colvin herself was clearly damaged both mentally and physically by her war experiences… but she was also a courageous, driven journalist who wanted the world to know how ordinary people are affected by decisions made by people in power (and Assad is still in power today).
The film is structured around a ‘countdown clock’ to her death – starting some eleven years before Homs – and it’s strange that, even know the entire audience knows she dies ‘in the end’, it acts as an important reminder that ‘she might have got away with it this time, but eventually the odds will catch up with her’.
I’ve just read Peter Bradshaw’s review in The Guardian and he regrets that the film “stopped short of revealing the woman behind the myth”. Frankly, I’m not sure I agree with him. For me, I wanted to learn about the Colvin the war correspondent (and her relationship with the newspaper/editor) and not her upbringing or private life. But, hey, it’s a film, not a documentary and, no doubt, there are lots of details that have been papered over or ignored in order to tell the story.
The film is a remarkable homage to Colvin, but also to journalists everywhere… and I was utterly captivated by it.