Whenever you see footage of a war, uprising or famine, there is usually a correspondent on camera, providing context for the disturbing images you see. They get a lot of credit for the work they do (and they should: they put themselves in harm's way over and over again to shine a light on human suffering that would otherwise go unnoticed). But behind each of those harrowing news segments, there is a cameraman or, more recently, a female cameraman who is equally worthy of recognition. No Ordinary Life pays homage to the trailblazing female photojournalists of the 1980s and 1990s, who launched into a dangerous career dominated by men no one thought they could handle and ended up bringing a unique empathy to the horrors they captured on film as part of the news of the day.
No Ordinary Life highlights the careers of five cameras: Mary Rogers, Cynde Strand, Margaret Moth, Maria Fleet, and Jane Evans. They all entered the scene at about the same time and were fully committed to the work of documenting crises around the world, regardless of the dangers involved. Because they were all journalists, naturally, there is no end to the number of images showing them in the midst of the genocide in the former Yugoslavia, the open war in Lebanon, the famine in Somalia, the cholera epidemic after the genocide in Rwanda and countless other heartbreaking facts. tragedies. And they were absolutely fearless. We see them literally get shot, and they remain consummate professionals throughout, bringing a tremendous sense of humanity to the stories they are helping to tell.
Director: Heather O'Neill
Stars: Christiane Amanpour, Maria Fleet, Margaret Moth
Sometimes society has a way of framing women in professional settings as adversaries, especially when they take on roles traditionally filled by men. We can hardly help but pit them against each other, imagining the all too common situation where there is only room for one "token" woman, and only the best possible woman will be able to keep up with her male colleagues. So what's surprising and really enjoyable about No Ordinary Life is the amount of time it spends letting women talk to each other as human beings.
They are incredibly warm, even effusive, in their comments, and the overwhelming personal and professional respect they have for each other is clear. There's no competition here: They all seem to recognize that they were doing a tough job in a male-dominated field, and if they didn't look out for each other, no one else would. Hearing their personal anecdotes, the funny little quirks of each of the women that they somehow managed to remember all these years later gives No Ordinary Life an extra dimension.
It also highlights how completely cut off from the rest of the world they were: this was more than just a job; They were months and years of their lives in which they accumulated experiences that no one but the handful of people they were with at the time could understand. There is an intense bond that forms under such conditions, and that is clear in the way they all talk about their time as photojournalists and their relationships with each other. It also adds a wistful tone to the segments as they discuss why they eventually left this role: It's not about switching from the field to the studio, but about acclimating to a completely different way of life.
That said, No Ordinary Life has its flaws, not in terms of its content, but in how everything is organized. It has a very formulaic structure in its narration that takes away some of its emotional energy. No Ordinary Life is fairly short, but feels almost dragged out in places because of this repetition. At times, it seems that the lives of these extraordinary women are just scratching the surface. Strangely, if it had been less committed to having a short running time, it might have flowed better, creating room for the filmmakers to dig deeper into their individual stories with more variation between different themes. The archive footage of his time in the camp is poignant because of how well shot it is and how well it captures the desperation of crisis, but it's not used particularly effectively in No Ordinary Life. There are a few brief moments where they discuss the unique qualities that each of the different videographers brought to their work. It would have been wonderful to see this enlarged and with more room to breathe. That said, No Ordinary Life is a fascinating piece of history, one that is rarely thought about, and the generosity of spirit that exists between all the themes makes it a joy to watch.
Watch No Ordinary Life 2022 Movie Trailer
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