Director: Eric Daniel Metzgar
Producers: Ben Affleck, Mikaela Beardsley, Steven Cantor, Ann Derry
Starring: Nicholas Kristof
Year: 2009
Country: United States
Running time: 90min.

(4/5)

The best documentaries do something more than just depict a subject or situation; rather, they seek to engage the audience, pushing us to question or examine the subject in the hopes of gaining a greater understanding or perspective than we would have simply by giving us straight facts. Not that any documentaries are ever truly objective, but the ones that rise above being simply informative and utilitarian and into the realm of filmmaking art often make their very lack of objectivity and easy answers an integral part of their story.

Reporter wears one of its agendas in its very title – though Eric Daniel Metzgar’s film very poignantly highlights the suffering and death among Congolese refugees fleeing the ongoing ruthless conflict between several factions of area warlords, he is most interested in New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and how Kristof seeks to bring the plight of the Congo to a seemingly deaf western world.

“Psychic numbing” is the psychological name for the mental block most people have when it comes to sympathizing with the suffering of a large group of people, such as the four million dead from the Congolese wars. In fact, states the film, people’s willingness to help those in need begins to decrease when asked to help as few as two people rather than just one. Armed with these psychological studies, Kristof seeks to find that single person, that single heart-wrenching story he can use as a focus for his columns (as he did with great results in uncovering the humanitarian crisis in Darfur). In this quest, however, he bypasses so many other horrific situations that don’t quite fit his needs that Metzgar is forced to question his methods, while begrudgingly admitting the logic of them.

The scope of Reporter thus becomes larger than Congo or Kristof, and touches on the very question of humanitarian activism itself – how can those who care about humanitarian needs convince others to care about them as well, and how can they keep from becoming jaded and unflappable themselves? At one point, Kristof points out that he’s now heard so many brutal and gut-wrenching stories that it’s not difficult for him to remain stoic and keep a disinterested distance as he interviews victims of war, starvation, and illness; has he also succumbed to psychic numbing to some degree? The difference, I suppose, is that he continues working and writing anyway, but it’s clearly a question Metzgar wants us to consider.

The other major section in the film describes a visit to the warlord Nkunda, providing an alternate point of view on the situation which is handled with a good deal of subtlety. Metzger presents this visit with a lot of suspense (will they be able to leave before dark, because the road is dangerous at night? how pointed may they make their questions to one of the men who is responsible for the state of the country? and when a warlord offers you a meal, can you refuse?), adding a far more entertaining flair to the film than most documentaries can muster. But answers here aren’t easy – Nkunda claims to be a freedom fighter, protecting his tribe against the rival tribe that carried out the Rwandan genocide several years ago. Yet the civilians in the villages are not protected at all and face starvation and disease every day, something Nkunda refuses to acknowledge, even as he and his men pray over a fine meal and show the visitors their chapel.

There are a few missteps, particularly concerning Kristof’s worry about the fading of print newspapers – the idea that the loss of print newspapers may result in the end of Kristof’s style of on-the-spot activist journalism is brought up multiple times but never firmly established (and in fact, the internet allowed for a large number of blog posts, photos, and videoblogs from a student and teacher accompanying Christof on the trip that never would’ve made it into the print version of the NY Times). Also, the opening section, relying on several talking heads to establish Kristof’s background and work in Darfur, is a tad overlong and not nearly as compelling as the more immediate Congo-set majority of the film. But as a whole, Metzgar’s film is extremely well-done and once we enter the Congo, remains riveting. Does Reporter offer any real answers to humanitarian crises? No. The needs are far too complex for that. But it does serve quite well as both an ever-so-slight check on the methods of activist journalism, while also provoking a much greater sense of conviction that such methods are necessary to break through to well-off and uninvolved western readers, a group in which I am all too complicit.

For further reading:
NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof
Two for the Road – Microsite collecting the articles, photos, and videoblogs from Will Okun and Leana S. Wen, who accompanied Kristof on the Congo trip
“A Student, a Teacher, and a Glimpse of War” – The film focuses on events that led to this article
“Dinner with a Warlord” – Article describing the visit to Nkunda, a prominent section in the film