Shooting Robert King

War is hell. That much is clear from Shooting Robert King, a documentary which spans 15 years in the life of freelance war photographer Robert King. Fellow war correspondent Richard Parry charts King's journey from wide-eyed, aspiring journalist to consummate professional whose pictures have appeared in the most lauded publications around the world.

King, a wide-eyed art school graduate who dreams of winning the Pulitzer, takes his first steps into the world of war photography by travelling to Sarajevo during the break up of Yugoslavia in 1992. He arrives with little clue as to what the conflict is about or how to conduct himself in such a hostile environment. His army style trousers immediately betray his rookie status to his more experienced colleagues who don’t believe he has what it takes to survive in the industry, let alone the warzone itself. King struggles on regardless, desperate to prove his detractors wrong. Despite their constant nay-saying and a series of setbacks, he finally manages to catch a break that could propel him into the big leagues of war correspondence. We later see how his tenacity has paid off when Parry catches up with him five years later in Chechnya. King is a changed man. Gone is the ill informed ingénue we met in Sarajevo and in his place is a cocksure, somewhat cynical photographer who has discovered certain unorthodox methods of coping with the horrors of war. A bizarre scene in which King uses a photo shoot involving several bananas to satisfy his sexual frustration delivers some much needed relief from the truly terrifying images of the conflict.

These episodes are intercut with more recent footage of a much older King hunting deer in the woods near his home in Tennessee. As he patiently stalks his game, the tranquility of the woods is in stark contrast to the chaos of war and allows King the opportunity to reminisce about his career and reflect on what drew him to war photography.

Parry does an outstanding job of allowing the audience to follow King on his journey as if we were right there with him in the thick of it. At the start of the film we are given a real sense of how he is forced to contend not only with bullets whizzing past his head but also adversity from his peers, not to mention his own incompetence. King’s transformation from the “little journalist” in Sarajevo to his reputation as a safe pair of hands in Iraq is dramatic but hardly surprising considering the amount of suffering and devastation he has seen over the years. The film provides a fascinating insight into what compels journalists and cameramen such as King to put their lives in danger all for the sake of telling a story. It is question that they themselves find difficult to answer but the film gives it a very good go. All in all it is a brilliantly moving, funny and inspiring portrait of a profession that deserves every ounce of attention and respect this film gives it.

The DVD also contains some excellent special features including a short documentary which follows King to Mexico as well as interviews with the director/producer Parry and his co-producer Vaughan Smith.