Cameraperson (2016) / Documentary

MPAA Rated: Not rated, but probably PG-13 for mature themes and testimony of atrocities
Running Time: 102 min.

Cast: Kirsten Johnson
Director: Kirsten Johnson
Review published January 13, 2017

Cameraperson represents the first directorial effort from respected documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson, who has been working the cameras for many acclaimed films for over twenty-five years.  It's not a typical documentary that strives to educate, inform, or politicize in order to change the minds of its viewers.  In fact, it is something completely personal and unique, culling together outtake clips and home movies that Johnson has captured on camera from a wide variety of films that she has worked on for others under one central theme: these are the moments that she captured that have marked her, the ones that have affected her in bearing witness to that still make her marvel many years later.

Interesting, as each clip is introduced, there is no context offered other than an inter-title letting us know the location where the piece we are about to witness has been filmed -- no narration, no mention of the film it is from, no discussion of why the clip meant something to Johnson.  They present themselves for us, as we're forced to put together what we are seeing, and reflect upon the significance of it based on the framing that there is a person who has obviously spent countless hours rummaging through her body of work to find just that thing that she wishes to share with us. 

Though the film is personal in approach, there are other, perhaps unintentional, feelings one will likely come out of Cameraperson feeling, most notably on how so many people are living completely different lives and experiences than we might ever think to know around this vast but ever shrinking world we call Earth.  From Wounded Knee in the United States to Bosnia to Afghanistan to Turkey to Nigeria and all points in between, we are introduced to people and places from a granular level.  Most of them are regular people just doing a routine thing (to them) such as herding sheep, or assisting in a birth.  Others are just people who are relating a personal story of something, usually tragic, that has befallen them, and they're just looking for someone who'll listen to them. Or, in some cases, it's just an incredible shot, such as the imminence and magnificence of an approaching thunderstorm.

Interspersed with all of these externalized subjects are also clips of Johnson's personal story, one being her young twins, who are just barely out of the toddler stage as we witness them, and the other is her late mother, who is shown in the film in a state of dementia, afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease.  In both cases, these personal subjects did not choose to be the subject for our perusal, but yet Johnson, who has spend most of her life worrying about consent for filming or using someone else's story, has decided to include them here without any expressed permission from her subjects. 

Although there is a brief moment in which we see Johnson herself reflected on the screen, she is entirely off camera.  On occasion, we hear her voice, such as in a scene in which she is filming two very young boys in Bosnia playing with and around an axe that has been carelessly left for anyone to come pick up.  Moments like these are challenging to Johnson, whose human instinct is to jump in and help, but her professional instinct is to keep documenting life as it happens, for better or worse.  In another very impactful segment, Johnson can be heard breathlessly hoping for the safety and health of a newborn baby in Nigeria, who desperately needs oxygen support that the hospital the young infant is in has neither the money or resources to provide.  In another, Johnson takes a moment to break from her impartiality to console a pregnant woman about to get an abortion who is undergoing a good degree of self-loathing for the unplanned pregnancy she finds herself in yet again.

If nothing else, Cameraperson reminds us that in between us and the subject caught on camera is another person, the cameraperson, who has taken the time and effort to make that connection happen.  That person has already seen and heard the very thing that is moving us at that moment -- intellectually or emotionally -- and has done so for the very purpose that they already have found what has been captured on film to have been worthy of record.  These professional passive observers are generally unseen, and mostly unheard, after witnessing Kirsten Johnson's artistic showcase of her most vital work, we will forever think of how we are not alone in this journey through film, and know that what we're feeling at that moment is a shared experience that has already been shared, not only by other viewers witnessing the same film as we are, but also that person holding the camera that has made it all possible.

 Qwipster's rating:

©2017 Vince Leo