Lee concentrates on photographer Lee Miller鈥檚 () time in World War II, but she had been a leading model in Paris in the 1920s, and worked closely with the avant-garde photographer and painter Man Ray. She lived a wild 鈥淩oaring 鈥�20s鈥� life, and admits she loved carousing. She had more than a lot of nerve: she made a photograph with her friend, Life Magazine photographer David E. Scherman (), in which Miller bathes in in Munich, fresh mud from the Dachau death camp on her boots.
The film opens with a quick bit of Miller dodging fire in a battle, but then cuts to 1977 at her home in the English countryside. A young man () interviews her. She chain-smokes and drinks; she had lung cancer and looks ragged. She sounds bitter.
Lee describes photographing Londoners during the Nazi blitz of the city, and then getting to France to see things for herself and take pictures 鈥� although women were barred from most of this. But the film seems like a list of greatest hits from the life of Lee Miller. She gets to France where she jumps into the thick of dreadful fighting in the seacoast town of St. Malo. Then right to liberated Paris. She goes to find a friend, but first stops a G.I. from raping a young French woman and then like clockwork finds that friend, model Solange D鈥橝yen ().
Later, a title says 鈥淕ermany 1945.鈥� But a lot happened in 1945, and when matters. Hitler killed himself and Eva Braun on April 30. That same day, not only did Miller reach Dachau and take photos, but the fine American filmmaker George Stevens also shot motion picture film that day that was used in the Nuremberg trials which started November 20, 1945. The movie shows Miller sickened and angry by what she sees, but doesn鈥檛 take the time to show the context, that she was in the first group of witnesses and this was the first filming of a death camp.
Not until the last 10 or 12 minutes of Lee does the picture reveal two thunderbolts of information, which change how you understand just about everything that鈥檚 happened up to that point. It鈥檚 suddenly like an O. Henry story with a clever ending. But Lee Miller lived a serious, complicated life; her story isn鈥檛 a trick or a pleasant diversion. It doesn鈥檛 deserve a big aha moment at the end 鈥� withholding this material until the end makes the movie into a gimmick.
What sparks is the photography. Director is herself a fine cinematographer. Here she works with Pavel Edelman to drain the glamor out of the images. Kate Winslet spends most of the film in dull light looking stressed in fatigues. You feel the dark oppression of the war, and the movie lets you discover, with Lee Miller, what she sees. After the office of London Vogue Magazine had been hit in the blitz, Lee grabs two high fashion models standing outside and puts them in helmets and masks for a photo. At Dachau, she walks through a hideous dormitory to find a little girl who鈥檇 been raped and beaten by Nazi guards.
The movie Lee finds its life in these moments, but as story, not so much.
