“The Bang Bang Club”
Film review by David Cobb
It’s not often that films are made about photographers, and when they are they’re usually documentaries. There are a few exceptions: In the early 2000s “City of God” dealt with the issue of photography in a peripheral manner, and so did the films “Proof” and “High Art” in the 1990s. Of course the 60’s classic “Blow Up” coupled photography with a possible crime and the exploration of what a photographer really captured on film.
With the 2011 release of the “Bang Bang Club” (based on the book of the same name by Marinovich and Silva), photography is in the forefront of a film that follows the lives of four photographers during the crisis of apartheid in South Africa. Two of the photographers Kevin Carter and Greg Marinovich, each won the Pulitzer Prize for their photography. (Carter, who took the mind-searing image of the vulture waiting for the child to die in the Sudan, committed suicide 14 months after his award.) Ken Oosterbroek was awarded the Ilford Press Photographer of the Year in ’89 and ’94 and was killed in action during 1994. Co-author Joao Silva was awarded the World Press Photo and lost his legs to a land mine in 2010 while photographing in Afghanistan.
The film (directed by Steven Silver) recounts the brutal violence and tumult of apartheid in the early 90s. Newbie Marinovich (Ryan Phillippe) joins a group of photographers working for The Star newspaper and is offered a freelance job after he takes some stunning images of Zulu warriors from a Soweto township. The group is later named the “Bang Bang Club” after venturing time and again into war-torn areas of South Africa. The team become friends and develop a strong bond, making them all better photographers and at the same time creating a certain level of mystique.
Their lives as photojournalists stay in the gray area and the film raises questions about the moral dilemmas of photo journalism. Are the photographers paparazzi, hyenas, heroes, or just doing their job? It also asks the question of when and if a photojournalist should help those in harm’s way. I started wondering to myself just how far I would go for a photo if I was in their shoes. As this group of photographers snaps the mayhem and murder of the daily life around them, they also struggle with the evil they witness in their lives. In one scene, Marinovich’s girlfriend and editor has to hold a lamp for illumination while he photographs a dead child, depicting just how desensitized to death he has become. The movie also captures the price paid by those they love and the people who surround their unsettled lives. A personal toll is taken on the photographers as they live with the danger of their jobs.
The “Bang Bang Club” is a powerful look at historical events and of the people who covered them. It’s well acted throughout and lead Phillippe is solid as usual. If you’re interested in photography and what it takes shoot under extreme duress, this film will be of interest to you. A trailer follows below.
Recent Comments