Citizenfour (***)

Decades from now, will Edward Snowden be widely viewed as a patriot who fought to protect the privacy of Americans from an increasingly intrusive government? Or as a traitor who, by copying government files and revealing the data-collection methods of the National Security Agency, betrayed his government and compromised the ability of the United States to catch potential terrorists? Or, I suspect, both? This documentary by Laura Poitras does not attempt to give a definitive answer to that question, but allows Snowden to explain his motivations and his course of action.

Not that Poitras is trying to be an objective filmmaker. She was in fact, Snowden’s initial conduit for releasing the NSA files. (Citizenfour was how he identified himself initially.) He had already contacted journalist Glenn Greenwald, whom he corrected assumed would be sympathetic to his views on privacy, but was unable to establish a secure communication method. So instead he turned to Poitras, who had already poked at US “war on terror” policies in her documentaries My Country, My Country and The Oath. Poitras arranged for Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, both of the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper, to interview Snowden in Hong Kong, and she and Greenwald were the conduit for the information the public got to hear. The filmed briefing sessions, over an eight-day period, form the heart of this film.

If nothing else, one is likely to conclude from the film that Snowden was at the very least, acting out of a sincere concern that the government was overreaching in its data-gathering, that he does not seem to be a crazy person, or even unusual in his demeanor, and that he acted cautiously. The caution was both in terms of how he released the data (only Poitras and Greenwald received all of the copied files) and how he arranged the release, including encrypting his conversations and not telling anyone he knew, including his girlfriend, of his plans.

But judging Snowden’s actions means assessing more than his good intentions and carefulness. It means also quantifying the seriousness of the threats to privacy, the value of the information that can be gained from searching millions of phone and internet records, and the effects of revealing the NSA’s activities. Poitras tells us some things about the first, virtually nothing about the second, and very little about the third. In her defense, these are all difficult to quantify, and doing so was probably not her intent. Rather, the film is best seen as explaining the types of activities the NSA (and, incidentally, and even more broadly, the British government) was engaged in, why Snowden saw that as a problem, and what he, assisted by Greenwald and other journalists, did about it. If you are only mildly interested in those questions, I’d avoid the movie. Snowden himself is articulate, and worth hearing, but not so colorful as to be a riveting personality. Visually, the film is unavoidably on the dull side, with the t-shirt wearing Snowden and his hotel room filling much screen time. And, because Poitras does not directly depict any of the government efforts to find Snowden, or prosecute him, or deal with the fallout of his revelations, the sense of tension is less than it might have been. Snowden’s relevations are a valuable piece of history, and it is good to have this record of what happened. But, as a movie, Citizenfour is merely worthwhile, not riveting.

IMDb link

viewed 11/19/14 7:20 pm at Ritz Bourse and posted 11/21/14