WHICH WAY IS THE FRONT LINE FROM HERE? THE LIFE AND TIME OF TIM HETHERINGTON

This deeply affectionate and totally disarming epilogue to the distinguished photo-journalist Tim Hetherington by Sebastian Junger his friend, colleague and co-director on the Oscar nominated ‘Restropo’ will have you reaching for your box of Kleenex. And quite rightly so. Aside from his inestimable body of work, this devilishly handsome tall rangy Brit ex public schoolboy with his compulsion for travelling the rough spots of the world so that he could ‘connect with real people in unique and unusual circumstances’ was clearly an old fashioned gent i.e. a completely unselfish decent human-being with such an infectious joie de vivre.

His first big ‘break’ came when he travelled with the Rebel Army in Liberia as they sought to overthrow the dictator Charles Taylor in that country’s bloody civil war. Never being one to believe in the moral outrage of war, his work avoided all the usual horrific battle pictures and he focused on the effects and the devastation on the local inhabitants. In this particular instance it was on children who had been deliberately blinded … whose cause he took up when he stayed on in Liberia after the war was over.

In 2007 Tim won the World Press Photo competition for his picture of a tired American soldier covering his face with his hand following a day of fighting in the Korangal Valley, Afghanistan. In the next two years he made several trips to Afghanistan with Sebastian Junger, and the two collaborated on the 2010 documentary ‘Restrepo’ based on their assignment in Afghanistan. When I blogged my Review on this I recall declaring it one of the finest examples of cinema verite I had ever seen and ‘an exceptional and stunning piece of journalism’. Now after watching behind the scenes of how/why this whole movie came about, I am even more in awe.

On camera, Tim acknowledged that he risked his life in the course of his work for a lot of very different reasons … some personal that he didn’t enlarge on … but mainly to find the objective truth. His work, he said, was part of his need to build bridges, and so he avoided the usual method of photographer’s obsession with detachment for objectivity so that he could make a connection with his subjects. He did so with great ease and abundant charm even in some of the most scary and dangerous of places he ended up in.

When he met Idil the ‘love of his life’ in 2010 he vowed to give up covering wars, but straight after attending the Oscar Ceremony in LA in 2012 Tim changed from his tuxedo into his flack jacket and caught a boat to Libya. There in Misrata he got shot …. not a fatal wound …. but on the journey to the hospital the other journalists with him couldn’t stop the blood loss, and so he died.

Aged 40 with a 10 year career behind him and a reputation as a humanitarian and a photo-journalist that will last for many years to come … and not just because of the Square named after him Libya or all his posthumous awards. From the interviews with his family you can see where he had inherited his strength of character from, and they also re-affirmed what all his friends and colleagues bore witness to : this was a remarkable inspirational man with unlimited rare compassion. He will be sorely missed.

The movie will be shown on HBO in the US later this year. Do not forget to have your Kleenex handy

P.S. Sebastian Junger has since set up R.I.S.C. Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues.

★★★★★★★★★★