Point and Shoot

Matthew VanDyke had a sheltered childhood in Baltimore, was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and is a shy man. After finishing graduate school he sets off by motorcycle across North Africa and the Middle East; in his own words he wants a crash course in manhood. In Libya he becomes friends with a group of young men. When the uprising starts in 2011 he takes up arms alongside them against Gaddafi. He is also carrying a camera. Marshall Curry built the documentary almost entirely from footage VanDyke shot himself. That is where the real subject lies: is the man going to war or making his own film? VanDyke says himself that he restaged some moments for the camera. Curry does not close the question and VanDyke does not go on the defensive. The tension of the film comes from the distance between heroism and display never becoming clear.