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A Private War
****
Dir: Matthew Heinemann
Starring: Rosamnund Pike, Jamie Dornan
(USA, 15, 1hr 50mins)
Marie Colvin was an award-winning journalist who plunged herself headlong into warzones with little regard for herself but a burning need to tell the real stories of the conflicts. Documentary maker Heinemann, who brought us the superb Cartel Land (about the Mexican drug trade) and City of Ghosts (about the Syrian conflict), makes his narrative debut with another unflinching account of war.
Rosamund Pike as Colvin humanizes a driven woman haunted by what she has seen. Colvin worked for The Sunday Times before her death in Homs in 2012. The film shows her crusading work in Sri Lanka amidst the Tamil Tigers where she lost an eye, in Kuwait discovering a mass grave, and tours of Afghanistan, Libya and finally Syria.
She teams up with photographer Paul Conroy (Jamie Dornan) as they enter hot zones, excited by the challenges and living on the edge in bombed out cities. Away from the warzone, Colvin is lost, uncomfortable with the accolades garlanded upon her, merely wishing to illuminate injustices everywhere. Her final dispatch from Homs showed how innocent Syrian civilians were being targeted by the Assad regime, thereby making herself a target; within hours of the dispatch she was dead.
Heinemann immerses us in Colvin’s life. Pike is fantastically convincing as Colvin, chewing her nails, edgy, at times unlikeable, not kowtowing to what’s expected of her. Her relationships suffer with everyone; editor Tom Hollander, ex-husband Greg Wise and new lover Stanley Tucci. What she has seen is etched into her soul, but her stubborn principles remain.
The war scenes are tense – a trip through Homs at night under sniper fire and border checks harrowing in their haphazard banality. It’s a gripping portrait of a woman who wanted the stories she was hearing to be shared with the world, to make a difference amidst the madness and A Private War certainly honours that.
words Keiron Self
Out now in cinemas