A Private War

A Private War is the story Marie Colvin (Rosamund Pike), the long time Sunday Times war correspondent of whom I was an occasional avid reader (now there's a contradiction).

Colvin, as with most war correspondents, risked her life to report from the front line but she often went where others feared to tread. Over the years she became a legendary figure who lost an eye to shrapnel in Sri Lanka in 2001 but, once she’d recovered, went back to reporting wearing an eyepatch like a badge of honour.

The film covers Colvin’s career up to her death in Homs in 2012 where she was in a building that the Syrian government shelled. At the time she was in Syria to prove that, despite what Assad had said, the government were targeting civilians. She proved it conclusively with her death and still got a live report in to CNN.

The film goes back a decade or more before Homs and keeps us informed of where we are with rather unnecessary nagging on-screen countdowns e.g. London, England, 10 years before Homs.

Having teamed up with photographer Paul Conroy (Jamie Dornan) she travels to Fallujah where they uncover mass graves containing victims of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Then as Colvin continues to be drawn to danger zones, we see her in Afghanistan and then interviewing Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

Her editor Sean Ryan (Tom Hollander) constantly fears for her safety and sanity but ultimately he needs her to sell newspapers and, luckily for him, her DNA constantly drove her back to the front line.

Although we do see Colvin in civilian life it is fleeting. She struggles in her relationships (Greg Wise/Stanley Tucci), suffers nightmares, drinks a lot of alcohol, is rarely without a cigarette but she does occasionally pop home to pick up an award. The implication being that her job took a great toll on her but it's not clear if this was the extent of her personal life and it would have been nice to have known more.

Rosamund Pike throws herself into the role and does a good job. The film may be more action movie than I would have liked but I still liked the film a lot. It is pro-journalist at a time when many journalists are rightly being criticised and news itself is under suspicion. Marie Colvin was one who believed in actual facts and real news.

A United Kingdom

A United Kingdom is set in post-war 1940s London and based on the true story of Seretse Khama, the heir to the throne of Botswana or Bechuanaland as it was then.

The events portrayed in the film are factual but not that well known in the UK. I personally knew little of this story before watching the film but I do now. I do love a good education.

Khama (David Oyelowo) is over in London studying while waiting to take over as leader in his own country. He inherited the rule as a young boy but his uncle is ruling as regent until he is old enough to take over.

It is while he is in London that he meets every day young lass Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike), the daughter of a salesman, at a church dance that oddly seems only to attract black African men and white British women. The Daily Mail would have had a field day.

He and Ruth hit it off, fall in love and marry. All rather quickly. We've seen a couple of films with instance romances recently.

Naturally this mixed race marriage is going to raise a few eyebrows and being shunned by her father (Nicholas Lyndhurst) turns out to be the least of their worries as she moves to Botswana with her man, not quite knowing what she's getting herself into.

When they arrive in his homeland, his choice of queen does not go down that well with the locals, with his uncle or indeed the British government whose protectorate Botswana is currently under. They all refuse to accept her and call for Khama to either give up his new bride or to give up his country.

Khama then seems to win over his people with his ‘I love my people’ speech but this does not work with the British government who are in hoc to the South African government, who are in the process of implementing their policy of apartheid. Naturally the prospect of a black leader in a neighbouring country marrying a white woman does not sit well with them.

The film takes us back and forth between a drab post-war England and bright sunny Botswana as it documents the political struggle that ensues. Prime Minister Clement Attlee exiles Khama from his own country leaving his newly pregnant wife marooned there where she actually makes a decent fist of being queen-elect and eventually wins over the people of Botswana.

There is hope when Winston Churchill, the leader of the Opposition, promises to reverse Attlee’s decision were he to win the forthcoming General Election. However, when he does, he changes his mind and takes an even harder line than Attlee did.

A solution comes in the form of diamonds. When there are discovered in the territory they belong to the people under a Protectorate but if they were a colony, as they British government wanted them to be, they wouldn’t have.

This knowledge enables Karma to reconcile with his uncle and they agree that he should he a renounced the throne allowing him and his wife to return to the country as private citizens while setting the country on a path to independence. Independence which is fulfilled in 1966 when Karma himself becomes the first democratically elected president of the Botswana. Their son is now the current President.

It’s a decent, if unspectacular film, which seems to be at least accurate in the majority of its historical detail which is rare these days. Well worth a look.