Love + War Review – Brave photojournalist Lynsey Addario shines in a sometimes strange study | Documentaries

TThe turbulent life and career of Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario is the subject of this National Geographic film, produced and directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (who made the climbing documentary Free Solo and the biopic Nyad with Annette Bening as endurance swimmer Diana Nyad). Addario’s work is certainly stunning and brave. She took compelling photographs in Ukraine, where her images of dead civilians helped mobilize Western opinion against Putin; in Libya, where she was horribly detained for several days with three other New York Times colleagues; And throughout the developing world, her images of maternal deaths have served as a catalyst for charitable work around the world.

Addario is smart and candid in the interview – we also get shots of broadcast journalism luminaries including Christiane Amanpour and Katie Couric – who recognize the dangers of adrenaline addiction and a world in which journalists are increasingly considered fair game in war zones. I think she is also aware of the dangers of producing very artistically beautiful images. Her job is only for strong people; One US Army officer describes it as “tough as a woodpecker’s lips,” and I believe him.

But I was a little unsure of how this movie almost veers into Hello! magazine lands by giving us so much of her gorgeous, very expensive and tasteful London home, her sensitive husband and her adorable children. There is no reason why this talented and successful photographer couldn’t be rich too; She deserves it. But some of these scenes look like a behind-the-scenes photo shoot of the kind usually observed by celebrities in the PR industry. Well, work is the most important thing and Addario speaks for itself.