War Story

I am very surprised to see that the film has such a low score (4,9 at the time this review is written) and gets negative to mediocre reviews from most critics and viewers.

Yes, this is not an enjoyable film. But it is so for a reason! It's the story of a traumatized war photographer, told from her point of view. And the way the camera tells the story stays definitely true to this character's confusion, denial and pain.

The highlights are Keener's performance and the beautifully minimalist score by Dave Eggar and Amy Lee.

I'm sure Jackson knew that this style of filmmaking is highly unpopular, especially in the blockbuster-driven and feel-good-indie-film-filled US. I give him additional kudos for deciding to go for it anyway.

I think the director was attempting to complete a movie with the fewest possible camera moves. It was drudgery at the highest level...what a terrible effort. And what the heck was the storyline??? Acting was marginal. The history leading to the events we saw was poorly explained. Too much foreign language spoken. The camera shots were endless with nothing changing in them. The written summary must have been gleaned from reading the book because there wasn't any of that explanation in the movie. I wonder if this was the directors first movie? That would explain everything. I'm not even clear on what countries they were in, and what nationalities they all were.

We watched this movie because it was rated a 7.1 at the time that I looked it up. What a mistake that was. This movie starts out slow with little explanation as to what is going on or the events that led up to it. It gets progressively slower and more pointless and confusing. How long can the camera follow someone down the street filming the back of their head in silence without boring the viewer to tears. The resent trend of directors filming characters staring off into space with blank expressions for excessive lengths of time is taken to a new level in War Story. I did not expect this one to be lighthearted but I did not expect to be suicidal by the end of it either. As much from the pointless cinematography, that had no bearing on the story, as from my desperate desire for it to be over. War Story is the worst movie I have seen in the last 15 years.

The protagonist here obviously has PTSD, or something very similar. Despite it being difficult to garner sympathy for her, she's often almost rude, imperious, a little selfish, you quickly know the reason why, and that why becomes even clearer the more you watch. She also has an irritating sense of entitlement, or perhaps in her grief she's unconsciously looking to be challenged or caught out. That's a difficult line to walk. She's also a tourist. It's as a concerned tourist perhaps that she attaches herself to another person likely also with PTSD, and more problems than that. That's when the film begins to make sense, when it finds a raison d'être beyond an interesting character study. Ships in the night, or the other side of love? This is definitely an arthouse indie film, but it has some technical aspects that make it worth the watch. One is the Directors ability to follow a character at shoulder level for some distance, as if the audience has become a companion. And then there is the use of background blur, which is also interesting. And the players themselves are superbly acted. War Story deserves a lot more than its low score I noticed just before I wrote this.

What a waste.

We don't need to see three minutes of the heroine rearranging the furniture in her hotel room. We saw her sleep (or try to sleep). We saw her driving. We don't need to see her watching a couple in the next room having sex. (Settle down, they're on the other side of a frosted glass window.) Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of wandering around Sicily. Lots and lots of pointless looking at assorted unknown people and things. We got to watch another character wait to use the restroom; yeah, absolutely true. We even had the obligatory "brushing of the teeth" scene. Oh, I can't forget (but I wish I could) the three-minute wide static shot of a conversation with the characters in the distance. We couldn't really see their faces, so we couldn't see their facial gestures to get a sense of their emotions. It was a pretentious one-shot scene that confirmed the director's lack of talent. How artistic! Yeah, yeah, it's all character development, blah, blah, blah. No it isn't.

It ultimately took over half an hour for the story to really begin. The character's incessant pondering led me to ponder, "Is this director Mark Jackson's cinematic love letter to himself?

All the "blank" scenes in which nothing happened are, I would imagine, not just thought of (mistakenly) as "artistic" by the director, but a darn fine way to keep the budget down and an easy way to fill 90 minutes so it could be called a feature film instead of a short film - it looks better on the resume, I guess.

It's apparent that writer Kristin Gore and writer/director Mark Jackson have had no experience in photojournalism. I do (thankfully never in a conflict), and I've worked with people who have been in war zones. Yes, some war photographers suffer PTSD. Yes, some conflict photographers abuse alcohol and drugs. Rather than showing her at work, even in flashbacks, we have a conversation that tells us all about war photographers. (We even get to hear the almost required tired phrase, "It's what we do..") Talking about whatever is the cheap, cheating way out; they're called "motion PICTURES" for a reason. The traumatic experiences that shaped the character should be shown, even in a quick flashback,, not talked about. (And no, I'm not a war movie lovin' kinda' guy. I usually avoid those.)

The cast was good, no complaints there, although sadly everyone's acting skills were wasted. They gave good performances in a bad film. (Kingsly only had about five minutes of screen time; he's a great actor, but his appearance was huge waste of money.)

War Story isn't "artistic." Instead, it shows a lack of understanding about how to tell a compelling story about interesting characters through film. It's truly self-indulgent on a level rarely achieved. It's pretentious. It's a waste of money, a waste of effort, a waste of great actors, and even a waste of my own time. Bravo, Mark Jackson!, you got a free trip to Italy out of the deal.

This should have been a short film, 20 minutes at most. It _might_ have had a shot of being entertaining in that case... but probably not even then.

If you can't keep people interested by giving them a little entertainment, then all the artistry packed into a film means absolutely nothing. (We can be entertained by films with mature subjects and themes, believe it or not.)

I'm a film snob and I love great artistic films, but even that love of film couldn't get me to feel warm and fuzzy about War Story.

I hate this film.