War photographer Robert King condenses the experience of the war zone into a single observation: If you weren’t crazy when you went, you are once you get there. This terrific film offers up the proof. Director Richard Parry followed King for 15 years to make this film, traveling to Chechnya, Russia, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Albania, Kosovo and Iraq, often under the most dangerous conditions. Along the journey, King grows from a green and idealistic 24-year-old into an acclaimed and successful war photographer. But the brutality of the subject he covers steadily takes its toll on King’s mental and physical well-being. Drinking and drugging himself numb in the war zone, King manages to survive and place himself close enough to the action to capture cover photos for several publications, including Time.

The film is anchored by contemporary discussions with a healthier and wiser King in his home environment in the woods of Tennessee, where he hunts deer, interacts with family and reflects on his experiences. Though King has begun a family, he feels ever more pressure to go to the war zones to earn a living, even with his new awareness of what it means to risk your life when others are depending on you. We rely on war reporters to be our eyes and ears, to take us to places that we never want to go. As King explains why he does his job and what its toll is, it is hard not to reflect on the risk he bears—not just for fame or fortune, but for us.

(Silverdocs)