Never Look Away (dir. Lucy Lawless)

Written by Tom Augustine.

Margaret Moth is the name of a rockstar, surely. For an alliterative name of such potent qualities, the person who claims the moniker seems predetermined to be imposing, wild, cool. Then you see a picture of Margaret Moth. Rarely has anyone looked so much like a rockstar who wasn’t one. Moth possessed another key quality of the greatest rockstars, your Bowies and your Princes — a certain measure of unknowability, an impenetrable mystery rumbling away at their core. The Kiwi war photographer was such an idiosyncratic mishmash of unique plugins; a strident humanist, an enthusiastic lover, an aloof chanteuse, an adrenaline junkie, an asshole, a warrior. Thankfully, in Lucy Lawless’ debut feature Never Look Away, there is no attempt to decode or ‘solve’ the many contradictions of a remarkable subject. Lawless, exercising a restraint rare in even more experienced documentarians, populates her story with the events of a life, and the recollections of those that lived in Moth’s wake. These recollections subvert and warp our perception as much as provide a clearer picture. 

For her debut feature, Kiwi icon Lucy Lawless has turned the camera on another remarkable New Zealand woman, war photographer Margaret Moth. With Never Look Away, premiering on Rialto Channel this month, Lawless presents a fascinating portrait of a profoundly complex individual, matching the ingenuity and idiosyncrasy of the subject with muscular direction and intelligent storytelling.

Moth was a name I’d heard in passing, but was not someone I was astutely aware of beyond a vague understanding that she was something of a Kiwi legend. The thing that most people are probably aware of when it comes to Moth is the shooting — the sniper’s bullet which, while on assignment in Sarajevo, tore into Moth’s jaw and nearly killed her. It was, of course, a pivotal moment in Moth’s life, one that would alter it deeply and whose impact would ripple outward for years to come, as such sudden acts of violence usually will. Lawless pays careful attention to the moment, but in unpacking the life and times of Moth, Never Look Away provides us a key insight — that this was a jarringly traumatic but consistent moment in the often chaotic life of a woman seemingly without fear. Lawless follows Moth, with her striking shock of black hair and angular, inquiring face, into warzones around the world, uncovering countless moments of death-defying diligence to always get the shot, no matter the danger. Never Look Away delves into the same central theme of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker: that war is a drug, and, as with addicts of any shape, the habit is hard to kick when you’re trying to reintegrate into normal life once again. Lawless has roped in a range of interview subjects from various aspects of Moth’s life, but few are as illuminating as two of her major loves; Russi, at the time a 17-year-old who entered a relationship with the much older Moth at a vulnerable age; and  Yashinka, a fellow journalist and drug addict. In Lawless’ telling, the two form a kind of yin and yang — Russi gentle, vulnerable, full of heart, Yashinka striking, confident, weathered and worldly. We come to understand both parts formed a whole within Moth, who got different things from either lover, and who left both damage and joy behind for the men to untangle as they grow older.

One of the great delights of Never Look Away is the revelation of Lawless’ direction: in her confident telling, the actor-turned-helmswoman imbues the fabric of her film with Moth’s consummate style and edge. This is no more apparent than in the rendering of the Sarajevo incident. With no footage of the event existing, Lawless instead, rather ingeniously, renders the story using scale models of the city and the architecture of the area in which Moth was shot. The result is haunting and otherworldly, both distancing us in a liminal space and snapping the violence of the event into horrifying focus. As compelling is Lawless’ refusal to sugarcoat or lionise Moth ad nauseum, despite her innumerable admirable qualities. The photographer, as with many great practitioners working in highly risky environments, could be incredibly destructive to herself and to others. Lawless’ presentation of some of these lingering after effects is sobering, as is the brief but illuminating foray into Moth’s abusive, fraught childhood, with the inclusion of similarly striking, unadorned siblings adding a dash of acidity that’s fascinating to chew on. The result is a portrait that we can suspect Moth would be proud of — no frills, no bullshit. Instead, a real picture; one that doesn’t tell the whole story but which conveys the truth regardless.

Never Look Away  premieres on March 22 at 8:30 PM on Rialto Channel (Sky, Channel 39)

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE TRAILER