Liberia's Devils
Nora Connor: We’ve been watching PBS’s “Women, War and Peace.” Less a series than a grouping of thematically linked films, it takes women’s experiences, roles and concerns as the starting point for an examination of contemporary war, from on-the-ground experiences of privation and violence to the legal remove of places like the Hague. The project aims to place women “at the center of an urgent dialogue about conflict and security.” This narrative priority infuses the films with a sober tone, insulating them from the creeping adventurism that infects even some of the most politically anti-war visual journalism (although, ironically, the film probably would not have been possible without footage produced in service of exactly that type of adrenaline-fueled glamour enterprise, known in British circles as “bang-bang” journalism). Continue Reading →