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Margaret Moth’s life could have been ripped straight from a pulp fiction novel. The New Zealand-born photojournalist spent her youth dropping acid and skydiving before traversing the globe to blaze trails for women in the world of war photography. Rising through the ranks at CNN, she covered war zones in Kuwait, Georgia, Bosnia, Lebanon, the Congo, Somalia, Chechnya, Gaza, and Sarajevo — where she took a bullet to the face that permanently limited her ability to speak but barely slowed her down. Unfazed by gunfire and explosions, she saw battlefields as breeding grounds for the kind of human drama that was worth risking any amount of physical safety to document.
She did it all while maintaining an unapologetically individualistic mindset, refusing any kind of commitment that could hinder her ability to drop everything at a moment’s notice to pursue a new adventure. While she was never interested in family, she seemed to make a lasting impact on men around the world, many of whom recall their fleeting relationships with her with reverence that borders on spiritual. She’s equally beloved among her fellow journalists, who uphold her fearlessness as an example of the profession at its best
Those exes and colleagues serve as the primary narrators of “Never Look Away,” a new documentary directed by Lucy Lawless that attempts to give Moth the kind of hagiography that her eventful life merited. Told largely through still photographs, war zone B-roll, and interviews with friends, the film celebrates Moth as a one-of-a-kind spirit who saw the risks of war journalism as a small price to pay for the thrills it provided. The film serves as a tribute to a certain brand of journalism that can only be achieved by venturing out into the great unknown and putting one’s self in harm’s way. But more than anything, it tells a human story about someone who understood herself well enough to live the exact life she wanted while accepting every consequence that came with it.
Before anyone was sending Moth into war zones, people around her understood that she was special. A boyfriend who spent years with her while she filmed political press conferences in Houston recalled that she lived her life by a simple creed: “Never be boring.” Her obsession with chasing new thrills — of the chemical, experiential, and intellectual variety — was so strong that she shunned anyone in her circle who began to feel safe or repetitive. Fortunately, her magnetic personality drew interesting strangers into her orbit faster than she could expel the dull ones.
While Moth was easy to fall in love with, she made it clear that nobody could own her. The only exclusivity she partook in was her exclusive preference for open relationships, and she could spend years living one way before jetting off to Paris to shack up with a heroin addict at a moment’s notice. That thirst for adventure eventually fused with her knack for photography, turning her into one of the most celebrated war journalists of her generation.
Moth’s CNN colleagues describe her as an artist with a distinct eye for the bits of humanity that shined through the carnage. And for her part, she was instantly taken by the thrill of covering wars. She would smoke cigars with Norman Schwarzkopf at night before going to sleep in combat gear to ensure she was ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Her career was the result of an individual who found the perfect set of circumstances, leaving Moth as one of the rare humans without a single doubt about the way she chose to spend her life.
Her enthusiasm couldn’t even be dampened by the bullet that blew her jaw off. While filming in Sniper Alley during the Bosnian War, a stray gunshot left her permanently disfigured. She endured 25 facial reconstruction surgeries, eventually regaining a fraction of her abilities but unable to eat or speak normally ever again. The setback only prompted her to work harder, and it wasn’t long before she was back in war zones with the cameras that she saw as vital extensions of herself.
For all its talk of war photography, Lawless’ film is much more interested in Moth’s ravenous appetite for life than the specifics of her professional achievements. While Lawless makes an effort to explain the contradictions of her personality — the photographer was fueled by an endless well of anger that only prompted her to sprint faster towards danger and excitement, but she cherished each day with a genuine sincerity — the psychological probe amounts to an uncritical endorsement of the way Moth lived her life. Moth’s choices aren’t for everyone, but the New Zealander knew exactly what she wanted and was honest about asking herself what she needed to give up for it. The answer to the latter question was “everything,” and Lawless dares all of her viewers to accept that as bravely as her subject did.
Grade: B+
A Greenwich Entertainment release, “Never Look Away” opens in select theaters on Friday, November 22.
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