French writer/philosopher/war reporter Bernard-Henri Lévy probably knows more about war than any writer around. He’s written more than 45 books. He’s also directed five documentaries about war, including “Bosna!” (filmed during the 1993-94 siege of Sarajevo); “The Oath of Tobruk” (his diary on the battlefield of the 3011 Libyan revolution); “Peshmerga,” a road movie about ISIS and the Kurds; and “The Battle of Mosul” (during the combat to “liberate” the city).
Now he’s given us “The Will To See,” a documentary about late 20th and early 21st-century wars of liberation in Nigeria, Kurdistan, Sarajevo, Somalia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Greek island of Lesbos (“a huge camp lost in the hills,” he reports. “Here they throw journalists’ cameras in the sea. Trash and latrines everywhere, and the innocence of children who don’t know that they are superfluous.”)
In Kabul, he looks for Homa, a female reporter who asks for and gets a salary advance, then buys barbiturates and kills herself.
In Vienna, Lévy awaits a plane to Kurdistan, arriving after an attack on the Jewish quarter. Lévy’s comment: “I remember 20 years ago, we met to say no to fascism. Forty years ago, we were protesting communism. Today all we do is light candles. The Kurds are tired of all this spilled blood.”
Today, we are all weary of newscasts telling us of more death, atrocities and indignities imposed on the Ukrainians by Putin. Lévy says it best: “I dream of writing in a country without death.”
We may never see that, but the wonder of “The Will To See” is Lévy’s personable writing (and speaking) style, that fascinates even when what he’s talking about repulses you. It’s a gift.
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