The Devil Came on Horseback - Film Review

The Devil Came on Horseback
Feature Film/Documentary, 85 min.
Dir. Ricki Stern, Anne Sundberg
Break Thru Films, 2007.

Synopsis
Filmed mainly in Sudan, and also on press tours throughout the United States, The Devil Came on Horseback is the testimonial of a former U.S. Marine Captain, Brian Steidle, and his work as an official military observer overseeing the 2004 cease-fire in Darfur. Because he was a military contractor, not a journalist, Steidle was able to capture images that are almost inconceivable. Steidle had nearly unlimited access and ability to photograph genocidal atrocities committed by the Arab-run Sudanese government and the Janjaweed (a government sanctioned militia group), who worked together to fire-bomb, then raid villages throughout Sudan.

After finding little international support for his assessments—the UN reported receiving less than 5% of Steidle’s photographic and written accounts in over six months—Steidle returned to the U.S. and brought his photographs to the press. Steidle received a huge response to the photos published in a New York Times op-ed piece written by Nicholas Kristof, but the American people and/or the U.S. government took no immediate action.

Steidle returned to Chad, which shares a border with the Darfur region of Sudan, and interviewed genocide survivors about their experiences fleeing from the Janjaweed in Sudan. One man explained that no other Islamic country will assist the Black African Sudanese being persecuted. He went on to explain that the Sudanese refugees count on U.S. support, as well as the support of other Western countries, in order to survive. They rely on us.

Returning home once again, Steidle goes on another press tour with the Save Darfur Coalition, a U.S.-based advocacy group working for international intervention in the Darfur genocide. He brings about eight giant binders, each filled with thousands of his photographs from Sudan, in order to show that the few genocidal acts he presented as case studies were part of a much larger terrorization of the Black African Sudanese. Steidle pushes hard to have the U.S. government and/or citizens realize that history is repeating itself in our unwillingness to engage fully and rapidly to stop the genocide. Steps to prosecute the Sudanese president in the International Criminal Court, to move troops to the region for the protection of the Sudanese, to act in any way in response to the surprise we feel viewing these images (see below) are not being taken.

By the end of the film, Steidle concludes: “I knew that bad things happened; I didn’t know that the world would stand by and allow them to happen. I honestly thought … that if the people of America could see what I have seen, there would be troops here in one week … to stop these things because they are so horrendous … That’s not true at all. Because they’ve seen it now, and we’ve still done nothing” (The Devil Came on Horseback 1:20:50). Steidle is disappointed in the lack of developed country support, or even admission of inaction, he has received, and feels guilty for not having being able to affect change himself in his role as a documentarian.

Analysis
Brian Steidle is not a career photographer—he is a career military man. He did not go to Darfur with the intent to make journalistic or documentary photographs for public use, but that is what he came back with. Steidle recorded six months of the Darfur conflict—when there was supposedly a cease-fire, no less—and, when the African Union (his employer) or the United Nations took no action, Steidle came back to the United States to incite action himself by releasing this information to the press.

These photographs, which Steidle has so rightly brought to the public eye, have so much power, and help exemplify the influence photography carries when used as a documentation medium. Photography is often seen as a way to capture all things beautiful in our world, but it has so much more leverage when used to document that which is ugly and perilous. Photography is not just an art, and not just a science, but a tool, just like statistics and case studies and written reports, which might be used to further understand and evaluate the things in our world that require change. Photography can be used to visually represent statistics that are so shocking they become abstract. Photography can make case studies more personal, and add legitimacy to written reports that might otherwise be called overblown or inflated. Photography can make these monstrosities real.

Interpretation
In some cases, the best person to complete this photographic mission is NOT a career photographer, who would want rights and by-lines and control over his/her images. The photographer who takes on a mission of information gathering and distribution must step back and allow his/her photographs to speak for themselves. They must see each photograph not as a profit or loss to their personal income, but as a profit or loss to the world’s knowledge. Steidle’s willingness to present every photograph, not just the ones edited to fit an artistic or journalistic vision, and willingness to give away these giant binders of photos to anyone who even just might have sway or generate change (The Devil 0:50:50-0:51:45) shows his dedication to his humanitarian goals, rather than dedication to his personal rights to the photographs.


Evaluation
Stern and Sundberg have created a thoughtful account of Steidle’s work as a military-employed documentary photographer. It is so refreshing to see an account not of Steidle’s work, limitations, and process, but of the effects of his work. Not only does The Devil Came on Horseback focus on the public reaction to a documentation project, but also on the disappointment in the American public on the photographer’s part. It is easy for me to idealize the process of documentary photography, thinking that they will always generate movement and action on the part of the privileged. It is harder to realize that we, as Americans, are generally a selfish and greedy people who have accepted our status quo and do not consider or take on the atrocities of our fellow man as failures of our own.

Conclusion
I am so inspired by photographers like Sebastiáo Salgado and Brian Steidle. These photographers are true documentarians. They are photographers as a means to change the world; they are not changing the world as means to be a photographer. International documentary photography is a dirty, dangerous, and often thankless job. It requires huge risks and political barriers, and can, as Steidle points out, result in severe disappointment.

Inaction will only continue, though, as long as we are unwilling to confront the fact that bad things happen. Once we are, as a society, able to accept that bad things happen, we must then realize that we have the power—and the responsibility!—to speak out and make change happen for those who do not have our same sway in world politics. It does not behoove us to idly stand by and make excuses for our own inaction—this is not something solvable by sticking our heads into the sand. Though we have not yet learned from the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocides, and so many other incidences of ethnic cleansing, it is my hope that we will get it right one day. It’s going to take more dedicated documentation and a sustained commitment to grassroots action, but one day, people will not only pay attention--they’ll take it personally.