Documentary Review: "Jim: The James Foley Story"

Jim: The James Foley Story (2016)

4.5 Stars out of 5

Director                               Brian Oakes
Writer                                  Heather McDonald, Brian Oakes
Screenplay                          Chris Chuang
Cinematographer              Clair Popkin

Music (The Empty Chair)  Sting, J. Ralph

James Foley                        Murdered, 8/19/14
John Foley, Sr.                    Father
Diane Foley                        Mother
John Foley, Jr.                    Older brother
Michael Foley                    Younger Brother
Mark Foley                         Younger Brother
Katie Foley                         Younger Sister
Philip Balboni                    Global Post Editor, employer
Fellow Prisoners               John Cantlie (English, still being held), Daniel Rye Ottosen (Danish,    
                                             ransomed), Didier Francoise and Nicholas Henin (French, ransomed),
                                             Steven Sotloff (American, murdered 9/2/14)

 

James Foley, an American photo-journalist was beheaded by ISIS on August 19, 2014. “Jim: The James Foley Story” written (along with Heather McDonald and Chris Chuang) and directed by childhood friend Brian Oakes was a Sun Dance Festival “Audience Award” winner at this year’s Sun Dance Festival. HBO premiered it on television on February 6, 2016. Foley had been kidnapped in Idlib, Syria on Thanksgiving Day, nearly two years before his death at the hands of ISIS. One of the more unusual aspects of his tragic story is that he had already endured a previous imprisonment in Libya in 2011 by a different group of Islamic terrorists where he had been covering the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi. He was freed in the Libyan case but the various attempts (including an armed rescue mission, not discussed in the movie) by the US government failed to free him in Syria. That Oaks deeply admires, perhaps even loves Foley and his family seems abundantly clear in his movie. An unanswered or even asked question is what Oakes and the Foley family thinks of the efforts to free Foley by the US government. There is some discussion by Foley’s colleagues on the issue of journalists in war zones. However, this movie is really more a memorial to the driven and beloved Foley than a documentary-styled examination of the issues surrounding his imprisonment, his death, or the role of the US government in overseas kidnapping cases such as his.

The movie follows a time worn process often followed in older documentaries of interviewing a series of talking heads; though to Oakes’ credit he overlays their comments with images from the two war zones in question as well as family home videos of James and his siblings when all were small children. Oakes is able to bring three different layers of conversations into the film that help explain Foley’s personality from his family’s point of view; his dedication to the people and events along the front lines as seen by his fellow journalists; and finally his life in ISIS’s hands from three of his fellow prisoners’ experiences – most notably, Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottosen. At one point, there were eighteen to nineteen men placed in a single ISIS cell in Raqaa, Syria. These other prisoners were all foreign journalists from England, Denmark, France, Russia, and Spain; and at least two from America.  The three that spend a good time of the film’s length describing life in prison were Ottosen and two Frenchmen, Didier Francoise and Nicholas Henin. Ottosen, Foley’s father John Sr. and two of Foley’s brothers, John Jr. and Michael provide emotionally compelling family testimony.

During several discussions, John Jr. finds it hard to maintain his composure as he discusses James’ decision to initially and even more unbelievingly to return to the war zones of Libya and Syria. John’s perspective is largely oriented towards James’ happiness, indeed his survival. This stands in stark contrast to comments by John and others that indicate so clearly James’ irresistible desire to help the people caught up in the brutality of war. Michael is better able to remain composed but is just as uncomprehending over James’ decisions to repeatedly expose himself to life threatening situations. However, I found the Dane Ottosen’s comments the most instructive of the film. To be sure, the Foley’s family’s remembrances and emotional state were largely the most affecting, but it was Ottosen that gave insight into life as a prisoner of ISIS and of Foley’s near saint-like behavior towards his fellow prisoners. Foley was a man that had already been imprisoned for a year by someone (it still is not clear who) prior to his transfer to ISIS control in Raqaa, and upon being introduced to his new cell mates almost immediately offers some of his clothing to another prisoner, one evidently in desperate need of warmth. His compassion for his those in his cell certainly did not end there. Multiple examples are given in the film of Foley never losing his composure despite being singled out by ISIS for being an American and for having a brother (John Jr.) having been in the American military; or other examples such as one of him comforting a prisoner (Ottosen again) experiencing depression as he awaits his release and this at time when it appears Foley knows with certainty that he himself will never be released.

The movie does a great job of establishing Foley as a modern saint, and while this may sound like hyperbole, it is not. What the movie does not examine very well at all is the questionable wisdom of having unarmed civilians (i.e. the journalists in question) in a war zone. When Foley was captured in Libya he had been embedded with local Libyan rebel forces and was somewhat protected, but when he was in Syria, he operated with only a driver and translator. What kind of rationale drives such people as Foley to enter the world’s most dangerous locations with little more than a bullet-proof vest, a helmet and a camera? That it seems self-evidently illogical is inescapable to me. I am strongly tempted to place such decisions to enter the war zone, no matter the intentions, in a category hardly different from BASE jumpers, winter hikers of Mt. Hood, or Niagara Falls tight rope walkers. Yes, these people (like the journalists) have the right to risk their own lives. And yes, the journalists are not simply adrenaline junkies (though this does appear to be part of their decision process – as commented on by at least one of the film’s surviving journalists), the journalists do serve a great public good. It is just that I find my compassion for these imprisoned journalists tempered somewhat by the fact that they have taken inordinate risks with their lives. Their videos of the oppressed and murdered victims of ISIS are important to the world. however, the lives of the journalists are just as important. I cannot equate the risks the journalists take with the value of their videos.

The film is an outstanding tribute to James Foley. It is constructed beautifully and when taken solely as a tribute and not as a wide ranging documentary (on imprisoned journalists, on America’s fractured policy of retrieving our captured journalists, on the people of the war zones, or even of other captured journalists), then this is a beautiful commentary on a man; a man that could be confused with a saint. As long as the movie is regarded as a tribute, there are few issues with the film that I could find. I did finish the movie wondering what was the youngest Foley (Mark) brother’s  views on James, and even more to the point, what became of the Englishman captured with James Foley, John Cantlie. As I searched for Cantlie’s status, I learned to my surprise and dismay that he remains to this day a prisoner of ISIS. I also learned of a second American held and murdered shortly after Foley by ISIS, Steven Sotloff. Indeed, it was Sotloff’s beheading that finally proved too much for President Barak Obama. Following the Sotloff atrocity, America began bombing in earnest those parts of Syria and Iraq under ISIS control.

This is an excellent movie, one well worth watching. I cannot blame the film’s makers for focusing exclusively on James Foley; the title certainly gave fair warning. It is a good film and I do recommend it. I also recommend you bring some tissues; you’ll need them as the moving is powerfully wrenching as you experience some of the Foley family pain.