Christian Frei: Documentary shows authentic moments
Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
At this year's Jakarta International Film Festival (JIFFest), which ended on Sunday, one of the most attended films was War Photographer, a 2002 Academy Award nominee.
A documentary film by Swiss director Christian Frei, it is an inspiring movie that portrays the life of American war photographer James Nachtwey.
The film not only documents wars in Kosovo and Ramallah, but also tells the story of Sumarno, a handicapped man who lives with his family near the railroad tracks in Jakarta.
There also are shots of a man being lynched in the capital, as well as of sulfur mine workers in Kawah Ijen, East Java.
"Because those things are forms of violence also," said Frei, 43.
Born in Schonenwerd, Switzerland, Frei studied the visual media at the Department of Journalism and Communication at the University of Fribourg. He has been working as an independent director and producer since 1984, and works regularly for Swiss National Television SF DRS.
War Photographer is his seventh documentary film, and has received tremendous positive reaction.
Frei was here recently to attend a screening and discussion of the film. He sat down with The Jakarta Post for a face-to-face interview last week, and below are the excerpts.
Question: Why did you choose James Nachtwey as the subject of your film?
Answer: It was in 1997. I was on a plane to the Chicago Film Festival and had a magazine, Stern. I was struck immediately by the outstanding photographs of Afghanistan, and the fact that there was a man who was interested in it while nobody was at that time.
I started to do research on the photographer. The fascinating thing about him is he's not the cliched cynical and hard-boiled war photographer portrayed in Hollywood movies. He is calm, a loner who doesn't like to make a fuss about his work.
Q: I heard he turned down your proposal at first...
A: It took me around four months to get his approval. I understood his objections that a photographer like him is supposed to be invisible. A film crew would disturb his work. It was also dangerous and he couldn't be responsible for other people's lives.
The solution was attaching microcameras the size of index an finger to his camera. Nobody has done it before. The crew was a cameraman who also acted as a sound technician.
Me? I was some 20 to 30 meters behind.
Q: You spent two years following him, right?
A: Yes. We started with the general election in Jakarta in 1999. We came for the rioting but fortunately it was less violent than everybody expected.
We then decided to include the social sequences because we considered poverty to be a form of violence. Then we filmed the poor people living along the railroad tracks. It was a difficult start because we had to adjust, to get to know each other.
Q: How did you find the people along the railroad tracks, and the lynching? Were they coincidental?
A: I did a little research before. But Nachtwey found the lynching. He's just phenomenal, he always works. It was Sunday morning, everyone was tired and other journalists were sleeping. But he was already on the road.
He already knew Jakarta well, exactly where the areas and points of conflict were. He checked them out and found the incident.
The situation was very dangerous but he photographed it anyway. He does not chase the sensational aspects. But he wants the world to know the ugly pictures, and maybe it can put pressure on the (local) government.
Q: Why did you choose to be a documentary filmmaker?
A: I love documentaries because they feature less stereotyping. I believe that reality leads sometimes to the most interesting, dramatic stories.
Many people consider feature films to be royalty. But I see a revival of interest in documentaries worldwide. Somehow it is owing to the reality TV shows. I don't consider those shows to be documentaries, but they show that authentic moments with real people are interesting.
It's very important for every country to have documentaries because it can become a form of communication between cultures and countries.
Like how Islamic countries receive hatred from the United States. Whereas they (Americans) don't know about the full range of Islamic culture.
So, it's very important for us to document it to show different aspects of Islam.
My next project will be in Afghanistan. About the Buddha statue that was blown up by the Taliban, while the statue had been there for centuries and was a symbol of Islam's tolerance.
The key (in documentary filmmaking) is to go beyond stereotypes. Stereotypes can be dangerous. Not in the sense of film, because James Bond is a stereotype but we all love it. Bollywood is a stereotype, yet I love the movies. But stereotypes in the real world can lead to racism, misunderstanding and hatred. People like to think in one dimension.
Q: How did you feel going from war to war and filming it?
A: I had to learn what war is all about. I live in Switzerland where the last war we had was, like, 200 years ago. So I wasn't used to violence, rioting, the fact that people could be lynched in the street.
In movies we see stereotypes of war, which involve adventures and heroes. But in real wars these are hard to find. It was also difficult to find both sides of the story. War is just terrible.
Q: What was the general reaction from people after they watched War Photographer?
A: It's amazing how people have reacted, like saying the film is the best documentary they ever saw. For me, the most rewarding thing to happen was the reaction. It's even more rewarding than the Oscar nomination.
I'm not saying this because I'm in Indonesia, but so many people reacted so much to Sumarno sequence, saying that it was the most touching part.
I think in documentaries, you are also able to make small things very big. I told Nachtwey that I wasn't interested in big blows. It's not a small thing that people live just beside railroad tracks. But it's not as "sensational" as Sept. 11 or the unfortunate Bali bombing. It's the very structural violence that is very interesting because I'm not used to it, and many people ignore it.