Review of The Deminer (2017)
Seen in 2021.
Major Fakhir Bewari of the Peshmerga, father of eight, devotes his life to clearing thousands of mines and IEDs with a pair of wire cutters.
The portrayal is angled to suggest that Bewari was driven entirely by altruism. The way he talks to and about the victims of terrorism shows that altruism was indeed a major factor, and Bewari was surely a bigger hero than the fictional men of The Hurt Locker (2008), but even a great man does not abandon career and family so completely for that reason alone.
The editor includes an acknowledgement that Bewari was in debt, and in dire medical straits. This suggests a deathwish in the latter stage of his career. Whether he was also an adrenaline junkie, or driven by PTSD to repeat the traumatic act of entering traps, is suitably unclear.