The veteran war reporter Robert Fisk poses painful and profound questions about conflict and humanity in this engaging biographical documentary
1980:
Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk dodges gunfire in bombed-to-rubble streets on the frontline of the Iran-Iraq war. Cut to 2018, and Fisk, nearly 40 years older, hair a little thinner, glasses a little less clunky, is walking through almost identical ruined streets, this time in Homs,
Syria. After a lifetime reporting on conflict, Fisk reflects on the capacity of human beings to cause chaos on such a scale. Is there something deep in our souls that permits it because it feels natural? His painful, deeply serious question about the inevitability of war sets the tone of this documentary about his career, directed by Yung Chang. Fisk is defiant against his critics, yet a kind of Graham Greene-like weariness seems to creep in at times. Later he admits: “Mostly I fear that what we write doesn’t make the slightest difference.”