Sergio (2009) Reviews

• Beautiful and haunting story

  Dziga72010-04-12

  I saw SERGIO at an advance screening in Boston, at a memorial for its editor Karen Schmeer. The film is an incredibly moving and suspenseful story of long-time UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who was trapped after a massive bomb blast on UN headquarters in Iraq in 2003 – the dawning of the violent insurgency that was to spread rapidly and viciously in the following years. The film details the harrowing events of that day, as two US paramedics/EMT soldiers recount the extraordinary and terrifying extremes undertaken to try to save Sergio and his colleague Gil Loescher, who were half-buried in the depths of the ruins of the UN building (powerfully recreated – think Touching the Void). SERGIO beautifully balances the ordeal of that day with the life of Sergio – interviewing family and colleagues, weaving in news and archival footage – following Sergio's personal successes and failures, and his inspiring career as a peacemaker and humanitarian working on behalf of refugees from Cambodia to Kosovo to East Timor. Particularly powerful are interviews with his girlfriend Carolina Larriera, with whom Sergio was about to return to Brazil to begin a new life. Sergio the man is a dashing, charismatic, complicated, awe-inspiring figure – part Gandhi, part James Bond. What could have been a totally boring biopic is instead a riveting and inspiring story of love, loss, and rebirth. An outstanding film.

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• Important, moving documentary about a true hero

  runamokprods2011-10-06

  Tremendously moving documentary of the life and death (in a 2003 Iraq suicide bombing) of a true hero. Sergio de Mello, a dashing, handsome man who devoted his life to the United Nations and trying to save people and bring peace to troubled regions. He was described by one person as a combination of James Bond and Bobby Kennedy, and that certainly seems apt. Unafraid to talk directly with 'the bad guys' in a situation, whether the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia or militants in Iraq, he believed in hearing out all sides, not just imposing dictates. And he went to Iraq in spite of opposing the war, because he thought just maybe he could help the occupation end sooner, and return Iraq to its citizens. The film cleverly (and harrowingly) intercuts an overview of Sergio's career, and the hours after a car bomb explodes outside his office in Iraq, as woefully under equipped American forces try desperately and heroically to save him. If I have any complaint at all it's that as powerful and emotional as the struggle to save Sergio is, I would have traded some minutes of that very completely told story to learn more about his life as a brilliant, tough, gentle fighter for the oppressed. I felt some frustration that the story of who the man was seemed to get a little short changed next to the more immediately dramatic story of how he died. Maybe I just wish the film were 20 minutes longer. But, in a world filled with empty, time wasting stories, what a wonderful thing to be able to wish for.

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