Citizenfour

Greetings again from the darkness. Edward Snowden. You know the name and you know the story. Hero of the People or Enemy of the State? Ultimate Patriot or a double-spy for the Russians? Protected as a Whistle-Blower or Guilty of Treason? Chances are you long ago made up your mind on how you view Ed (his stated name preference).

In January 2013, Snowden contacted documentarian Laura Poitras via an anonymous email name "Citizenfour". By June, the two were meeting in a Hong Kong hotel along with journalist Glenn Greenwald. What follows is a mesmerizing look at the actual footage shot of Greenwald interviewing Snowden. This is Ed Snowden before the media storm. This is Ed Snowden continually proclaiming that he is not the story, and he is trusting Greenwald to determine what documents are fit for public release. He voices concern about jeopardizing national security, while at the same time being adamant about exposing the immense and widespread governmental tracking of digital movements by millions of people … most with no known ties to terrorism.

The timeline is public record, so the core of the film is really an intimate look at the man who, acutely aware of the coming fallout, proceeded with pulling the curtain back on NSA actions that he deemed inappropriate. Ms. Poitras structures the film as a thriller, and it will certainly cause tension in every viewer. We can't help but put ourselves in Snowden's shoes. Would we feel the need to go public with proof? Who would we tell? How would we tell them? Would we be willing to release our name, knowing it could put everyone we love in danger? Would we be prepared to watch our President publicly call us out as unpatriotic and a danger to the nation? These questions are impossible for us to answer, but add weight to the scenes of Snowden answering Greenwald's questions while Ms. Poitras works the camera.

One of the more interesting points made in the movie is that what we once termed individual freedom and liberties, is now couched as privacy. We have come to expect our privacy, and certainly don't appreciate our government digging through our emails, search history, texts and phone calls. But how to balance the individual "right" to privacy with the government's need to collect intelligence in the name of national security? That's the key question, and one with no clear answer.

Regardless of your opinion on Snowden and his actions, the film presents him as an idealist believing he is doing the right thing. Most of this occurs before the media firestorm, but we do see the anticipated fallout. Once Snowden goes into hiding, we witness Greenwald becoming the face and voice of the cause. He is a talented journalist and exceptional speaker, and doesn't back down from the reaction of those who stand accused.

The film allows us to take notice of the personal attacks on Snowden as an attempt discredit his documentation. Making Snowden the story distracted the media and the general public from the real issue. It's a fascinating film that will surely make you uncomfortable and cause re-evaluation of the chain of events. You may not change your mind, but you will most certainly have a better understanding of the human side.

Edward Snowden went from obscurity to fame overnight when he blew the whistle on the NSA's massive espionage program in June 2013. Litigator-turned-reporter Glenn Greenwald got recognized as the person helping Snowden expose the story, along with The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill and The Washington Post's Barton Gellman. But while the world saw the footage of Snowden speaking in the hotel room in Hong Kong, there was another person in the room with him, Greenwald and MacAskill: Laura Poitras, who filmed the interview. "Citizenfour" (the name that Snowden used when he contacted Poitras) tells the story of the interview and international reaction to Snowden's revelations.

It took guts to film and release this documentary. I think that in the end, the main outcome of Snowden's revelations is that the US's and UK's reputations are ruined. The documentary includes footage of hearings on the surveillance in Brazil (whose president was a victim of the surveillance) and Belgium (the seat of the European Union, whose heads of state were victims). I suspect that the peoples of Eastern Europe are the most befuddled by the revelations. For years under the Soviet occupation they looked to the US as a beacon of freedom, and now they see that the US is no different from the USSR. The British government, meanwhile, comes across as a US proxy in Europe.

"Citizenfour" is a documentary that not only deserves a lot of recognition, but should spark more discussion about the surveillance apparatus. As for Edward Snowden, he remains in political asylum in Russia, and his partner Lindsay Mills has joined him there. Oliver Stone is now making a movie about his revelations. In the meantime, I recommend the documentary.

I really appreciate what Snowden did and this film only raises my level of gratitude because it shows the man as well as the information he disclosed. Given this and the risk a filmmaker takes when recording a sensitive subject like this, I do think that the makers of Citizenfour should be praised.

However, once you start watching it you realize that it is made from the same mold that other revelatory, controversial or conspiracist documentaries are made from. The Oscar is not for the quality of the film as it is for the subject. And, assuming that you are informed about the case - I still get the shivers when I see that most people I meet don't even know who Snowden is, you might find it difficult to understand why this movie is better than others, cinematically speaking.

Also, I feel that the film was way too focused on the journalistic process and too little on the actual meaning of the information or the aftermath of the disclosures. It is, actually, a human angle story more than a documentary about the biggest intelligence reveal of the last century. While not a bad thing, it is ironically what Snowden repeatedly said he does not want: to be the center of the story.

One gets to feel the alienation and pervasive angst that Snowden felt, even if this is sometimes done through cheap soundtrack tricks. One sees a smiling 29 year old become burdened more and more as time goes by. Less smiling, more dark patches under the eyes, more bewildered looks. And this while staying in hotels and having communication with people that relay his information and while being protected by a nation state. It is unimaginable what a normal person, without this safety net, would feel.

Bottom line: certainly worth watching, not so sure about the Oscar thing, but as long as that raises awareness of the subject matter, it is also worthy.

...and given the constraints they were operating under, maybe that much could not be revealed.

The first 20 minutes or so are of Ed, who isn't even known to the world yet, talking to a couple of journalists he has invited to his Hong Kong hotel room where he is hiding out from a system that doesn't even know he is missing yet. In a way, I'm surprised they came because about ten minutes into the conversation one says "What is your name again?", so maybe they had no idea what they were getting into, maybe at first they thought they were dealing with a crackpot, etc.

Some people have said it is boring, and I don't know why. Although you never get any real specifics about what Snowden did have on the NSA, you get an idea from him just sitting on his bed in his tee shirt talking to these journalists that he has seen stuff that has made him hyper vigilant. He puts a red hood over him when he types in a password to his laptop in case there is visual surveillance, he unplugs the phone because it contains ICs that can be used as a "hot mike", and he is highly suspicious when the fire alarms go off just as he is talking about what he knows. His fear is real.

I think this preliminary footage may have just been a way to show a human side of Ed. I mean, a lot of the documentary (on top of revealing more details of the secrets he leaked) is meant to show to the world that he's not crazy bob in his trailer in Nevada. He's a young, very smart, very articulate, very normal individual. Showing him simply struggling with his hair (something I'm sure most of us have dealt with at one point or another) demonstrates to us that he's not a mysterious conspiracy theorist to be dismissed; he's just like you and I. And the human quality makes us trust what he has to say a lot more. It's easy to ignore someone you think is crazy. It's not so easy to ignore someone in whom you see a little bit of yourself.

As for Glenn Greenwald of UK's The Guardian, he's shown as an articulate spokesman and advocate. He goes to Brazil and explains to them that all of this surveillance is just not about fighting terrorism. He brings his case home to them by saying if they were bidding on a contract in the US, then all of the details of their negotiations and plans to get that contract are now in the hands of the US government, and could be put in the hands of any American competitor.

The negatives? There is a part at the end that is not clearly explained. It is a conversation between Greenwald and Snowden about there being another contact in Germany that is ready to talk about what he knows about NSA surveillance. Some extremely unclear pictures are drawn and Snowden looks somewhat horrified saying stuff like "This is very risky. Does this guy know what he is doing, etc." He is really scared for the new contact, but it is never clear what is going on. The only other negative I have is, did the print explaining the transition between scenes HAVE to be so small? I had to pause the DVD and get up close to the screen to see what was being said.

I'd highly recommend this documentary just based on the fact that it pulls together some of the information that has now been scrubbed from public sources, shows Snowden as a human being, shows the bravery of both himself and Glenn Greenwald, and brings up that pesky question - is giving up such privacy - which as the documentary mentions is pretty much a synonym for liberty - worth it for increased security. Benjamin Franklin seemed to think that was not so. Watch it with an open mind.

As I write this, a few days after the film's release, so far only three users have posted reviews about it on IMDb. Given that the film ends with the revelation that 1,200,000 people are on the US government's watchlist of people under surveillance, if you're contemplating adding a positive review, the first question that you have to ask yourself is: will this make me number 1,200,001? I've followed the media stories detailing the contents of the documents Snowden leaked, so that part of the film wasn't new to me, and in fact I felt some of Snowden's more serious disclosures were underexplored in the film, maybe because of their somewhat technical nature. If you're looking for a documentary that lays out in detail all the ins and outs of what the NSA is up to, this isn't it. The main strength of the film lies in its portrait of Snowden as a person. The filmmaker and other journalists basically meet Snowden in person for the first time with cameras running, and it's fascinating to watch them getting to know one another in such a highly charged, high stakes situation. Snowden is very articulate and precise, and obviously motivated by a very moral sense of right and wrong, in much the same way as Daniel Ellsberg. Whether or not you agree with Snowden, the film definitely undercuts criticism of him as being unpatriotic or mercenary. The documentary works well as an introduction to the Snowden story for those only casually aware of it, and also as a tense real world political thriller, sort of like Three Days Of The Condor come to life, but without the gunmen and Faye Dunaway. All in all, a very important film that everyone should see.