An appreciation for news-gathering in extreme conditions, Martyn Burke's documentary "Under Fire: Journalists in Combat" brings a heightened sense of psychological cost to the work of war correspondents, whose jobs have become increasingly dangerous. (Two reporters were killed in the Great War, whereas 900 have died in the last two decades.)
Using a mix of interviews and subject-relevant combat footage, Burke drives home the traumatic nature of the gig — how it creates adrenaline junkies, ruins personal relationships and often leads to crippling PTSD. Because his interviewees are professional witnesses, their firsthand accounts and the feelings they engendered are brutally vivid — and lead to more than one on-camera breakdown — although Burke's decision to have some read from their published memoirs, and the occasionally overblown score, create the film's only distancing effects.
