Navalny

I knew before I watched this BBC Storyville documentary that I would be moved to both anger and admiration. I can't think of how any right-minded individual couldn't admire the courage of Russian dissident politician Alexei Navalny in his futile attempt to not only speak truth to power but indeed to unseat that dictatorial power in the country of his birth which he clearly loves. The other side of the coin of course is the rage one feels as we see him crushed under the heel of the tyrant Putin by being arrested the second he sets foot again in Moscow and of course we now know that he has subsequently been brutally murdered earlier this year in his Siberian jail almost certainly under executive orders.

This moving documentary doesn't shed a lot of background on Navalny's previous history, rather it drops us right into the action as we see him and his team attempt to bolster their grass-roots support against Putin amongst the Russian public, an almost impossible task given that Putin controls almost every media outlet in the country. The one place where Navalny can get his message out is of course on the internet where he achieves one spectacular success as we see later in the film.

This fly-on-the-wall film offers the viewer intimate access to Navalny, his family and his back-up team and it's obvious that they all offer him their unconditional support. His wife Yulia in particular has a similarly fearless outlook as she stands right by his side in all his endeavours.

The crisis point reached in the film is when he is poisoned by the Russian dirty-tricks brigade following orders no doubt from the very top and barely survives. Welcomed into Germany by their then Chancellor Angela Merkel, he's treated well there and remarkably makes a full recovery before he embarks on the task of exposing the plot which he does with a brilliant sting on one of the perpetrators who no doubt is now doing hard labour in Siberia for being so easily duped.

We see just how piecemeal and rudimentary Navalny's whole operation is, built as it is on a small team of fellow-believers and done with the minimum of resources. We also witness the strong family bonds which subsisted between himself, his wife and their two almost grown children. Throughout Navalny comes over as a completely natural person but also as a driven individual even as he acknowledges that in resisting as he does, he is almost certainly signing his own death warrant, as indeed proved to be the case. It's important however to observe that the documentary isn't completely adulatory as he's asked direct questions about links with the far right where he perhaps betrays some political naivety.

Nevertheless, it makes the blood boil to see him bravely or foolishly, depending on your point of view, return to Moscow where he's inevitably arrested even though there's a large crowd of supporters waiting for him at the airport, who themselves we see brutally dispersed by the police.

The film ends with Navalny requoting the famous phrase attributed to Edmund Burke that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing and certainly in his sadly truncated life, Navalny could not and did not stand idly by and do nothing. One can only hope that in time we will be rid of the numerous despots around the world today ruling their manipulated and brainwashed populations by dictat. To do so, as Navalny recognised, we will need more fearless, principled individuals like him to stand up and be counted and hopefully this film will inspire them to pick up the torch even if it means putting their own lives in peril.

Film about poisoning. On August 20, 2020, Alexei Navalny, a fighter against dictator Putin, was poisoned. During the investigation of the poisoning, there are both funny and sad moments. In the course of the film, there will be one call that will surprise you and the film will not disappoint. If possible, take a look.

At the time of writing, the average rating is a little over 5, from over 10,000 ratings. Yet all but one of the written reviews rates it 9 or more. Bizarre no? Or does someone really want this film to rate badly for political reasons? That alone should make you want to see it.

Navalny is a remarkably brave, perhaps slightly arrogant man and his story is frightening and quite incredible. He and his team are very media savvy and at times the production feels almost too slick. Can we believe everything we see in the film? I feel it would be naive to do so given how all sides tend to manipulate mainstream media to their own ends.

My biggest concern is that the crux of the film is one telephone conversation. The problem is, we have absolutely no way of verifying the identity of the voice on the phone or if there is any truth to the conversation. The documentary brushes over this point, focusing instead on the content of the conversation, which is understandable given the sensational revelations made in it. So should we as the audience just believe it and move on or question it as well as everything else the producers want us to questions? I don't know.

Overall, well worth watching.

I'm writing this review on 2/16/2024. Alexei Navalny is reported to have died today while imprisoned by the Russian authorities in Siberia. President Biden alleged in a press conference that Putin is responsible for the death of Navalny.

Having seen this fascinating, eye-opening documentary last year (2023) I have no doubt what Biden alleged is true. This is an amazing and terrifying depiction of an assassination attempt on Navalny in 2020, followed by his own investigation in to who carried it out, exposing them for who they are, and ultimately exposing the actual nature of the corrupt Putin regime. This erased any remaining doubts I may have had about what Russia is capable of.

This is one of the all time great documentaries. If you want to understand what is behind a lot of what is wrong with our world today, and how Russia and Putin are behind so much of it, you should take a look at this.

There's a cage that holds a despot and he's rattled, as you've been shaking it he's become more embattled, so he's attacked your underwear, with an agent that's been smeared, it's left you rather weak and quite bedraggled. Time away is spent to aid recovery, this is when you make your big discovery, there are terrorists of the state, sanctioned assassins who orchestrate, removing those who might be called, adversary. Upon return you are arrested and imprisoned, the powers can't accept an opposition, a corrupt autocracy, will not let your speech be free, you will remain a detainee, without remission.