MATTHEW VANDYKE (CENTER) WELCOMED BACK AMONG LIBYAN REBELS IN POINT AND SHOOTPREVIEW"In the past it was easy to be both behind the camera and in front of the camera. But during a war, it became a more difficult thing to manage." So says Matthew VanDyke as he narrates his experience as a fighter in a brigade of the Libyan revolutionary army in 2011. (He calls it "brigade," though the word he gives, كتيبة/katiba, usually is translated "battalion," but he doesn't pretend to be an expert on Arabic.) Matthew Curry's documentary, much of which was shot by VanDyke himself, tells how he got there. It's a remarkable story of a sheltered "only child of an only child of an only child" with OCD from a middle class Baltimore family raised by his mother and grandmother, with few friends in school, well educated (an M.A. in Middle East Studies from Georgetown), who's never done anything. So he leaves his girlfriend, Lauren Fischer, in his mid-twenties, and goes off traveling the Middle East and Northern Africa on a motorcycle on a "crash course in manhood." There is a strong element of bravado and egotism. He's inspired by the film
Laurence of Arabia, which had helped spark his interest in the Arab World; by adventure stories, video games, and Australian adventurer Alby Mangels' cheesy World Safari films from the 1970s and '80s. He points and shoots, behind the camera, and in front of it.
Point and Shoot provides rare insights into manhood, ego, and war, as well as being one of the best real life coming of age tales and action travel diaries of recent times,
and a troubling, sometimes gruesome, sometimes absurd portrait of the new image-conscious, cellphone-shooting, social media urban warfare of today. Highly recommended.
Point and Shoot, 85 mins., debuted at Tribeca 19 April 2014. Many other film festivals since. Limited US theatrical release began 31 October 2014, 14 November Los Angeles; 5 December in San Francisco at Landmark's Opera Plaza.
Point and Shoot TRAILER.
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