A Mighty Heart
A Mighty Heart is the true story of Daniel Pearl's (Dan Futterman) abduction in Karachi, Pakistan. Daniel reported for the Wall Street Journal and was to do one last interview before leaving town with his pregnant wife Mariane (Angelina Jolie). After not returning home after the interview, Mariane and the police start the two-week search for him. As the story unravels, the audience learns of Daniel's reasons for being in Karachi and the sinister network behind his disappearance and eventual death.
Filmed as a documentary from Mariane's perspective, the audience receives a first-hand insight into the pain of losing a loved one. Jolie nails her French accent in a performance that should definitely be rewarded in months to come. Her emotion was nothing short of gut-wrenching, especially when learning the fate of her husband. Thankfully the captors' footage of Daniel's death wasn't shown, but it didn't need to be as the facial expressions of those who saw it unequivocally told the story.
Director Michael Winterbottom cleverly captured all events as perceived by a westerner. This differs somewhat from other doco films which a lot of superfluous information. This only creates a surreal atmosphere, something to be avoided when telling real stories. Aiding the documentary feel were the shaky camera and numerous close-ups. This created a slightly cold, impersonal feeling between audience and Jolie, but cleverly accentuated the documentary genre the film was based on.
Unfortunately I have to admit I was unaware this was based on a true story before seeing it. But this made the film all the more exciting and tense as I always felt Daniel would be found alive. And I was just as shocked as Mariane when Daniel's fate was finally learned.
This traumatic story (which also indicated prisoner torture) was very sensitively told. Even though the ending is somewhat known if you remember the event, the final scenes put an interesting twist on everything that unfolded. Defiantly worth seeing on the big screen.
4/5
Stewy J
