It was weirdly cinematic - Mark Henderson on My Kidnapper
- Posted: 11th Feb 2011
- Category: Articles
- Tags: mark henderson, feature documentary, colombia
In 2003 Mark Henderson, along with seven other tourists, was kidnapped by a rebel army in the jungle of Colombia. His ordeal lasted for three months before he was returned to safety. Shortly after, Mark received a friendly email from one of his captors. What ensued was a five-year correspondence between himself and ‘Antonio’ which culminated in a return to the past, a retracing of the ordeal and a meeting with his captor himself. Like any good filmmaker, Henderson made the decision to get this all on tape. He spoke with Laura Thornley at DFG to explain how one goes about making a film about such an extreme personal trauma.
At what point did you decide to make a film about your experience?
When I initially got back in 2003 people were approaching me about appearing in a documentary. There were TV companies saying we would like to make a programme about what happened to you. I was also approached by a couple of publishers about writing a book. I thought, since it was in the past tense, the logical way to tell the story was in a book. I did want to tell the story because I thought it was interesting and I thought it would be good for me, ordering it and sorting through it. I had kept a diary the whole time I was there, and basically I wanted to write about the first eight days, which I hadn’t written about in the diary. During that process all I was thinking about was the kidnapping. I started to get night terrors and became very panicky and nervous all the time and I realised this was basically because I was revisiting the kidnapping. Luckily at that time I met with a psychologist who said what I was going through was post-traumatic stress. So I just put all that aside and thought ‘I don’t want to write a book, I don’t want to make a film’.
And then I got an email from Antonio in November 2004. It was him who thought it up in his second email. In the mountains we had spoken about making a documentary. I think I was suggesting this to them, to really get on side with them and win their favour. I was telling them we could make a documentary about what they are fighting for, but in the back of my head there was absolutely no way I was ever going to go back and make that documentary. It was just a survival technique to get on side with them. But he was the one who brought it up again. That conversation started in our emails and we wrote back and forth. The reason it took five years before we went back is because that’s how long it took to raise funds to make the documentary.
Near the beginning of the film, you refer to your experience as being like a film. Can you explain this a little?
Yeah it’s a really strange thing that I went through, especially at the beginning with the kidnapping. The reason I say that is because I have no other point of reference to this. I have never been surrounded by guys in uniform with guns. Also, it was weirdly cinematic in a way. I have a background in television and media so maybe I think like that anyway. That may just be my way of dealing with or coping with it. Even one of the fellow hostages said to me after four or five days “it hasn’t really sunk in for you has it?” I don’t think it did because I was containing it in my head. When I say like a film, I don’t mean a film I wanted to make, I mean I felt like I was living a film. We were in this incredibly beautiful countryside, you have got the most amazing stretches of jungle and then you have got guys with guns and uniforms, and it just feels like nothing you have ever experienced before. Even right up to the point we were released: that felt like a film, the emotions and everything, it just doesn’t feel real. Everything is just so far removed from anything I have ever experienced before.
How did you handle being objective during the filmmaking process?
I don’t think that I am particularly objective in the film or that the film is objective. I made it with a co-director, Kate Horne, so it was quite useful to have her and her opinions on it as well. She knows Colombia incredibly well. She came on board initially as a producer and then moved over into a directorial role because if I was in front of the camera I couldn’t be the control freak director that I normally am. I think I realised early on that it wasn’t necessarily about the making of a film it was more about going back and my experiences as a former hostage. It was really hard, the main thing I had to do was really trust everyone around me. I had to trust Kate and I had to trust my cameramen, one of whom I had never worked with before. He is a Peruvian guy who has filmed part of the Cocaine series for Channel 4, he has filmed in Colombia and he has filmed with the rebels. So he knew the ground, he knew the territory. He also spoke Spanish, which was very useful. But it took me a few days to trust him, I wanted to see every shot and make sure that this was going to turn out how I wanted. The telling of the story was so important to me because this was my own story. I don’t think I will ever make a film that personal again.
It must have been such a risk, emotionally, for you to go back there, were you advised to?
Half and half I suppose, most people who know me know that I know my own mind. So they understood why I wanted to go back. I met with a woman (who we filmed with but it doesn’t feature in the film unfortunately) who was a psychologist, an expert in hostages. At the end of seeing her we talked about the idea of Stockholm Syndrome and all the things linked to being a hostage. She said as long as you know this is what you want to do, this will probably be the most amazing opportunity you will ever have, not everybody gets to go back to the place it happened and meet the people involved. Also they never really get the opportunity to meet the person who did it to them and to get all those answers from them.
Did it help?
Yeah absolutely. [It] wasn’t just going back; I think partly making the film helped that as well. Imagine you are sat in the edit suite for four months and watching this interview with Antonio, watching interviews with other people, there are obviously a hundred hours of footage, there’s only 82 minutes on screen. When you have a conversation with someone you miss the nuances of what they say or some of their facial ticks or the way they stutter over some words, but because I went over and over and over the footage again, I felt I understood it more. Editing is a lot of thinking through; it’s not just action and cutting things together. It gave me the opportunity to analyse our going back and what we learnt from that.
Also I had never seen the archive of footage from when we had been away. I had never wanted to. I thought I didn’t need to. It was fascinating seeing my parents on television and also seeing how the news was reported from this side.
How did the governments – UK and Colombian, react to the film?
I don’t know. Colombia maybe I can tell you about but the English I don’t know. The Met have a hostage unit and they were very instrumental in the kidnap, they are one of the best units in the world and they advised all the other nations. So a couple of people from there know about the film. We had a screening at a club, it was a special preview and we didn’t realise that the Colombian ambassador had come. It was only afterwards that he came [to introduce himself] and I thought ‘oh god we are really in trouble now!’ But actually he really enjoyed the film and he has become a huge supporter of it. We took it to Colombia last year for a film festival and he called up his friends and got them to come along. What I was worried about was that [they would think] we were harbouring some criminal. I think a lot of [Colombians] realise that making everyone accountable for every crime that they have done may not be the best way to do it because no one will want to reintegrate themselves into society. There has to be an element of forgiveness going on. I was terrified about what the reaction would be like in Colombia, but actually it’s been very good. There have been reactions like, ‘every time that man [Antonio] came on the screen I wanted to punch him, because it is people like him who has ruined this country’. But you also get people who feel that hopefully they can get something from this, because if we can forgive and move on then maybe they could too. You know, I never set out to create a film that preached to people about forgiveness. It’s kind of a nice bi-product I suppose.
Will you stay in touch with Antonio?
Yes, I still am. He emailed me five or six days ago about the film. He has seen a Spanish version now. He doesn’t speak English. He was interested to hear why we had taken some bits out or kept certain things in. Also he wanted to say sorry to my parents again because he had just seen their interviews. He is a guy that is apologetic for what he did. I always imagine that one day I will see him again.
Dir. Mark Henderson and Kate Horne, 2009, 82 mins English
My Kidnapper is released in cinemas 11th February. Read Laura Thornley's review here.