British-born freelance photographer Jason P Howe opens up to director Harold Monfils’s camera about the highs and lows of his career, shooting war zones and living large in this guts-and-glory work of non-fiction. Although his early years and background are only glancingly referred to (he was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, which he claims stops him from fearing death; his brother Andrew is a soldier), this pacey documentary covers the main points, such as how he was inspired by the work of Vietnam war photographer Tim Page (also interviewed here) and ended up among the Farc rebels in Colombia. This is where he had a relationship with a local woman named Marilyn, who turned out to be a professional assassin, which led to a degree of fame after their story was published, then further adventures in war zones in Iraq and, later, Afghanistan. No doubt someone in Hollywood will see this, note Howe’s resemblance to Ben Affleck before his hair went all weird, and start working on a biopic version of the material. However, what might get lost in subsequent accounts could be this picture’s most interesting quality: it’s questioning of war photographers’ own live-fast-die-young, self-mythologising tendencies. Ultimately, the film makes Howe, and pals Page, Eros Hoagland, Hector Emanuel, Karen Marón and Catherine Philp seem less like heroes and more like fallible human beings, occasionally high on the romance of war as well as other self-medicating substances.
