Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud

“Hmmm. I wasn't sure about this film. On the face of it, it provides us with a poignant critique of the dangers faced, time immemorial, by wartime journalists. Since the Crimean War, if not before, people have donned armbands or carried accreditation that is all the armour they have when they enter zones that any sane person would avoid like the plague. For just as long, they have been perishing at the hands of bullets and bombs. The fact that little of that risk appears to have been mitigated by Kevlar and PRESS in big letters written on it is writ large here in this tribute to American Brent Renaud who was shot by Russian forces whilst reporting from the Ukraine in 2022. This was a man whose career was spent in many of the world's disaster zones from Haiti and Somalia to Chicago and Kiev, and each time he has used his intimate photography to convey something of the lawlessness and pitiable situations left by natural diasters or by the results of protracted conflict. That's the part that works effectively. It's the way in which this is mingled in with the star spangled banner aspects that didn't sit so well with me. He was clearly a brave man, but what we see in front of the camera needed to be used far more carefully to emphasise the predicments and horrors faced by the victims, not to commemorate his photographic achievements. Why couldn't it have focussed more on the man himself, the difficulties faced organising the logistics of getting his work safely done; of the collegiate work done by international journalists to support each other and of the frequent corruption faced by people working in this dangerous industry striving to get us a truth? It's a fitting tribute to a man for his family's consumption, but for a wider world I'm not sure if it wasn't just a little lacking in objectivity.”