Creating a documentary about a deceased subject is no simple feat, and when that subject was shrouded in so much mystery during their time, the task becomes even more precarious. How should a picture of a person's entire life be painted through accounts that aren't their very own?
In Never Look Away, the directorial debut from Lucy Lawless about the trailblazing war photojournalist and camerawoman Margaret Moth, this picture is illustrated through snippets from Moth's former paramours, colleagues and family members. What forms is a portrait of a daring, fearless woman whom others could never pin down or force into a single box — an observation that doesn't delve much deeper beyond that surface. Never Look Away sets up two key pillars in Moth's life: her past romantic relationships with men and her legacy as a photojournalist with unconventional methods, and while each occasionally has a profound or touching angle to present, neither merge together in a way that feels cohesive.
Born Margaret Wilson, Moth hails from Grisborne, New Zealand, where she became the first woman news camera operator to be employed in the country. She had a zest for life and adrenaline-fuelled activities, an amorous way about romance with multiple lovers and open relationships, and a rock 'n' roll demeanour complete with a Joan Jett haircut. She moved to the United States in the 1980s and started working for CNN in the '90s. It takes no time at all for the film to launch the audience into the chaotic world that Margaret Moth inhabited.
"Margaret was my first girlfriend," says Jeff Russi, who dated Moth in the '90s when he was a 17-year-old high school student and she was 30. The whiplash of this opening is immediately followed with the title segment that sets Heart's "Barracuda" to war footage of bombed cities and running civilians, implied to be shot by Moth, along with images of her on the job, a choice that feels clumsy at best and tasteless at worst.
Several of Moth's former journalist colleagues, such as Stefano Kotsonis, Joe Duran, Christiane Amanpour and Susan Stein speak glowingly of Moth's reputation and work ethic covering the Persian Gulf War and conflicts in Georgia, Bosnia, Lebanon and more. Her brazen approach to her work constantly thrust her into the eye of the storm. When her crew crouched down for shelter as open gunfire rained down upon crowds in Tbilisi, Moth stood up, camera steadily perched on her shoulder to capture the perfect shot. In Tyre, she climbed to the top of a building and waited with her camera to see if the Israeli military would send missiles towards the very area she stood.
She favoured a raw, in-your-face style: close-ups of bodies and faces with none of the horrors of war prettied up or diluted. Using old footage and talking heads of colleagues, Lawless depicts Moth's signature strategies and puts the audience in the mindset of a war reporter well. But in portraying Moth as a badass, Lawless never examines or challenges, for instance, the ways in which this kind of journalism could perhaps have negative impacts on the communities it spotlighted, or if Moth herself dealt with lasting mental effects because of it.
In addition to footage and photographs of Moth's ventures around the world, the film uses dramatized reenactments of varying styles, oscillating between live action, digital animated stills and sketches, all of which feel too different and disjointed to work in tandem with one another. The sketches, which make an appearance when Moth's siblings recount their troubled childhood and fraught relationship with their parents (which in itself feels far too short and breezed over), are particularly effective in conveying the vulnerable head space of a child. Some of the digital renderings feel necessary to illustrate the logistics of specific locations Moth reported from, but in other instances they feel redundant in telling the story.
In 1992, while filming with her crew in Sarajevo, Moth suffered a life-altering injury when she was shot in the face in the backseat of a camera car. Her jaw was completely shattered, and she went through 25 surgeries to repair the bottom half of her face. The injury permanently impacted her ability to speak and she became accustomed to writing things down to communicate. This section of the documentary is its most moving and compelling, as viewers witness Moth in recovery and the emotional shift as she comes to terms with how her life will be irrevocably changed. She returned to work only a few years later, never being able to be kept away from her calling, but it's these quieter moments of healing that show Moth's resilience just as, if not better, than clips and stories of her wading through rubble.
Moth was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in 2007 and she moved back to the US to live the rest of her life, passing away in 2010. It's an ending that too feels rushed, even as her partners and colleagues give their heartfelt closing remarks about the free-spirited woman they once knew.
"Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll just wasn't enough," said former CNN cameraman Joe Duran, on his friend's attitude towards her job. "War was the ultimate drug." Whether audiences believe this statement to be a sincere outlook a person had on life, an insensitive way of viewing tragedy, or an inseparable combination of both, Never Look Away sometimes succeeds at giving glimpses into the whole human being Margaret Moth was, but with many unexplored corners, it only goes so far.