Part travel diary (a memoir, Kirsten Johnson calls the overall piece), part real-life vignettes, Cameraperson reveals intimate clarities about both crafting cinema and the human condition. By largely eschewing the formality of context, save for the names of locations preceding each scene and certain sobering lower third titles, Johnson presents fragments of lives lived one after the other. Experiences presented on film as authentically as possible--by leaving in a crew's chatter in the background, the shuffling of the camera into place, the honest inelegance of doing what needs to be done to get the shot.

Certain moves do feel almost too self-aware and indulgent--while the film is arguably just as much about Johnson as about anything else on screen, there are moments where her captured involvement feels the slightest bit affected. That being said, its nearly impossible to not get caught up in the grand emotional waves that the film produces. The interactions between cameraperson and subject are laid bare. For to film someone is to capture a moment for them.

Cameraperson's most striking strengths and weaknesses can be found in its editing. At its most obvious, an early rapid sequence of shots conveys the cosmopolitan tone of an Apple commercial hoping to make a point about how we're all connected. A string of landscapes, scenes of serenity in what are revealed to be sites of absolute tragedy--these sections may have some poignancy to them, but they leave the question open of what exactly Johnson is trying to say. The prominence of certain footage--particularly scenes from Bosnia as well as some courtroom scenes from the harrowing case of James Byrd Jr--force the viewer to feel as if there must be some want for an underlying conceptual theme to all this. The story of a Bosnian rape victim leaves its residue on the empty passion of a football game at Penn State, the first one after the news of the child sexual assault scandal was made known to everyone. Imprints of experience are shared, felt in every following frame no matter the situation.

Johnson shares her highly stylized realities with us and we feel somehow changed by having seen them. By viewing the painstakingly raw. Much of the footage in Cameraperson is unlike anything I've ever witnessed in life. And Johnson seemingly feels the same way, judging from her own vocalizations and emotions and outbursts that she leaves in. A cameraperson does not just silently record. A cameraperson cries. Laughs. Expresses surprise. Concern. Multiple times while watching this film, I teared up. I shouted in disbelief.

In Cameraperson, Kirsten Johnson does not simply capture life on screen. She experiences it fully and we experience it with her.