In this documentary, the ICC and three of its prosecutors give access to how they work, why they work, and how they can bring change to the process.
Directed by Marcus Vetter and Michele Gentile, this documentary may be about 2 years old, but it is still very timely, especially with the wars still raging and the way things are shifting in many countries at the moment. The way this documentary approaches its subjects is quite well done with first party accounts including that of one of the prosecutors of the Nuremberg trial. The film uses his first-person accounts from him and few other ICC prosecutors as well as bits of trials, images of war, of war crimes more specifically, and it posits, as the prosecutor does, that perhaps all wars are war crimes. In a film where what makes a war crime and how so we, as a world, deal with these and punish these, this proposition is one that holds a lot and leads to much thinking, some of it looked into in the film itself.
In terms of who shows up here, it’s not going to be a bunch of famous faces. With the exception of Angelina Jolie who was a UN ambassador for a period while this was being filmed, all the folks involved are prosecutors and justice system people. There is a lot of archival videos of warzones and war criminals as well as from the news and other moments in history, so of course politicians, war generals, and others known faces also show up, but this isn’t about fame or anything like that, so do not expect a cast of Hollywood faces here.
When it comes to the visual aspects of the film, the cinematography on the new footage is really strong, showing clearly what needs to be seen and allowing people to speak and be the center of the sequences they are speaking in. These sequences are mixed with archival footage from various sources, so the quality on those sequences varies, making the point of their sources being real life situations quite well. The editing by Marcus Vetter shows a careful attention to detail as the sequences come together well.
Here, the main idea is to have the message be clear, the subject of this film being war crimes and how they are dealt with by the ICC, or The Hague as most would know them, as well as what the world expects of them and how they can make changes to be better. There is a lot in here and it is a lot to take for anyone currently stressed over the state of the world, but it’s a necessary watch to learn from history and avoid repeating it. Or at least learn from history to prepare for what is coming, no matter which country you are in. War is something as old as time, prosecution for war crimes is fairly newer and needs more spotlight and more understanding.