Overall, War Photographer is a really well-made and extremely provocative look at James Nachtwey's life as a photojournalist. Christian Frei's decisions concerning camera placement--especially mounted onto Nachtwey's camera--really puts the audience into Nachtwey's eyes as he documents the horrors of war. The fact that the film documents Nachtwey's documentation is an interesting sort of meta-documentation that reminds me of Ken Josephson's photograph of a photograph.
Something that did trouble me about the film's production is how long the film takes to tell the audience that Nachtwey actually has the permission of his subjects before he photographs them. In the scenes before that, these horribly downtrodden people are crying and often staring straight into the camera. Without knowledge that Nachtwey has their permission, I thought he was an unimaginable asshole getting in grieving people's faces. That's probably intentional, but I didn't care for that.
Other than that, the film is filled with memorable images, especially the family living on the gravel between train tracks. I'll never forget how little disturbed they are by the trains speeding past them as they eat and go about their day.
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