A Private War
*ing: Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan, Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci
Rated: 7/10
The beauty of this film is Rosamund Pike and the way she completely blends into the life and turmoil of American Journalist Marie Catherine Colvin, the foreign affairs correspondent of the British newspaper The Sunday Times. She died in a bomb attack in Holms while covering the siege of Syria.
The film, excellently stitched up by Matthew Heineman, shows up his documentary making skills which has been his core job for most of his career.
Such is the obsession of Colvin for war zone journalism that she almost makes you feel angry that she threw all caution to the wind and jumped into a deadly situation against all advice.
She lost an eye in Sri Lanka while covering the Tamil Tigers fighting for independence, she has nightmares of an Afghan girl lying all dressed and dead in her bed, she smokes like a chimney, has a zero zilch personal life and is emotionally beseeched by the rigours of war killings and losing colleagues an yet she lives to return to conflict like a woman possessed.
The film just as beautifully portrays Colvin’s conflict within herself as it does the helplessness of populations against war in general, the personal cost of warring Governments, coups, rapes, graves and what not.
A journalist will definitely find it a feather in the cap of, well, journalism!