It only makes sense that a master documentarian would segue into narrative film through the story of someone like them. And, really, for an emotional tale of obsession and revelation, it might not get any richer than the story of Marie Colvin. Colvin's tale as depicted in this film is less an odyssey across war-torn Asia and more of, well, her own "private war," her relationship with her job, her work, and her life.
It's less a war thriller than a war drama: essentially, the character of Marie Colvin becomes the lens through which we see the world. Rosamund Pike delivers an awesome performance, and it's her gritty realism -- and arresting deep voice -- that hammers this movie home. We begin with (though we may not know it yet) the scene of her death in Homs from the perspective of a drone surveying the ungodly wreckage. We immediately fly back in time and though the beats are nominally structured in terms of time "before Homs" -- thereby creating a cinematic nihilism that's hard to shake -- the film takes on a nebulous quality in which we shift from conflict to conflict without much detail.
And I think that's the point. It's not a Zero Dark Thirty exercise in specificity, but rather an impressionistic montage of a episodes in a woman's life that shape her character. The wailing women, demolished buildings, dead bodies, men with guns: all are largely interchangeable, much like the wars that cause them. Suffering and pain and destruction are the product of all wars, and to someone determined to live in these areas, all wars thus become the same. It's the individuals she meets and the stories she tells that matter most.
Most to her, that is. On screen, she's what matters to us. Chainsmoking her way through each frame, she catalogs the psychological and physiological damage of her work. Panic attacks, a gruff demeanor, shapeless work khakis, and her iconic black eye patch all disguise a vibrant woman lusting for life. She wears designer bras and enacts apparently satisfying sexual encounters (even with Stanley Tucci!). Most tellingly, she actively hates the disasters in which she finds herself, but nonetheless feels compelled to engage. She suggests to her ex-husband that they marry again, though he says it ended badly the first time. Similarly, even after she loses her eye, she goes back out into the field knowing full well the dangers in store.
In fact, she hates the wars and violence as much as the film's director, and that's what makes this film so interesting. We're witnessing people drowning in a phenomenon they hate and yet consciously -- intentionally -- continue to throw themselves into. And while the idea that war is a drug might be commonplace since The Hurt Locker, here we see that it even affects those who hate it. Colvin's obsessive tendency is summed up when she says she looks so everyone else doesn't have to; I wonder, though, given Heineman's tendencies (he clearly identifies with Colvin), if the line might also mean they look so that they can make us look as well.
And, like from other excellent movies lately about the press, we also gain a newfound respect for this most democratic of institutions, so often vilified by the current president's administration.
IMDb: A Private War
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