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

Cold Eyes (***1/4) [screening]

You’ve seen movies like this before. (You could have even seen one very much like it, since this is a remake of a Hong Kong film.) A criminal gang with a polished mastermind faces off against an elite law enforcement squad. (A movie like that called Elite Squad is one of Brazil’s biggest hits ever.) The squad specializes in surveillance. They identify; they trace; they tag; they track. But, when it comes time to engage, they call in the tactical team, following protocol. They use tactics that, when employed against Will Smith in 1998’s Enemy of the State, seemed to obviously exceed the possible, and now, with electronic eyes surveying major segments of major cities around the world, seem increasingly plausible.

The heroine of this saga (Hyo-ju Han) is the squad’s newbie — code name Piglet. Perhaps because she is female, she gets to show a broader range of emotion than one might expect. The hero is the squad leader, Falcon, who gives her a stringent memorization test in the type of set piece that’s often a staple of this kind of movie. All of the squad have animal nicknames, and Falcon literally moves them (or wooden representations, actually) around on a chess board that represents the streets of Seoul. They even give their first suspect an animal nickname. Caught on camera buying a soft drink, he becomes a “thirsty hippo.” The movie begins with a bank heist and climaxes with a lengthy chase sequence. They’re quite well done, and while I think I missed a link or two in the chain of evidence that allows the squad to identify the mastermind, the chases are clearly shot, and the two directors have a strong visual sense generally. 

The level of violence is moderate. There’s some humor in the banter between the squad members. Again, nothing entirely new here, but a well-done thriller.

IMDb link

viewed 10/24/13 7:00 pm at Ritz East [Philadelphia Film Festival screening] and posted 10/25/13

Closed Circuit (***1/4)

--> The specter of international terrorism has figured into many a movie plot, but not so much the revised legal framework that has arisen in parallel to the perceived threat. In Britain, we learn from this thriller, the mechanism for dealing with national security-related information involves providing two counselors to an accused terrorist. A Special Advocate, like the one played by Rebecca Hall, is allowed to see the secret evidence against the accused and argue for her fellow barrister’s (Eric Bana) right to use it. A judge decides. The twist here is that the two counselors, who are supposed to have no contact, had formerly been romantically involved. (Apparently, no one had time to investigate, as the predecessor of  Bana’s character had suddenly committed suicide. Hmm.) And there are twists that make both of their jobs difficult, and mysteries, like how the Turkish-born man said to have masterminded a bombing that killed 120 in London, managed to emigrate from Germany to England.
This is too brightly lit to be film noir. but has some of the things people like about noir — clandestine meetings, coded language, things being not what they seem. It also has some of the same tropes as typical thrillers — turncoats, hints of conspiracy, villain (or villains) with nearly unlimited power, etc. — that in this national-security context are more plausible than would otherwise be the case. It doesn’t have any car chases, but, as the title suggests, makes use of security camera footage to build tension. The sexual tension between the leads is expected, but it’s nicely understated, without deep exposition about the breakup or dramatic declarations. The past relationship of the two counselors also figures into the plot. Screenwriter Steve Knight, incidentally, also is credited with Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things, two of the better thrillers of the last decade.

Closed Circuit is a notch behind those two. It doesn’t reveal a hidden subculture; nor does it shed on the proper way to fight terrorism. It does suggest that claims of national security can be a pretext to avoid disclosing information embarrassing to government agencies. But mostly it’s just a smart, entertaining thriller.

IMDb link

viewed 8/29/13 7:45 pm at Ritz 5; posted 9/3/13

Caché (Hidden) (***)

The only problem with this absorbing psychological thriller, the tale of an anonymously menaced couple, is its frustratingly inconclusive ending.

An anonymous videotape is placed on a man’s balcony, showing that the man is being watched. Another video follows, and an anonymous call. The man and his wife feel threatened, but the police say there’s nothing to be done absent an explicit threat. I was thinking that if this were a Hollywood movie, Mel Gibson or Harrison Ford, as the hero, would have his friend who’s a forensics expert trace the DNA on the tape and turn the tables on the villain, who would conveniently fall off a building at the end of the movie. But instead our hero is played by French everyman Daniel Auteuil, his wife is the equally ubiquitous Juliette Binoche, and the writer-director is Michael Haneke, who’s often had the adjective “disturbing” applied to his work. Haneke, an Austrian whose latest films are in French, depicts the psychologically challenging behavior of his characters while leaving plenty of room for the viewer’s interpretation. Lest this seem ponderous, in this case it’s not (certainly not compared to Haneke’s best-known film, the sexually perverse The Piano Teacher).  From a slow start, Caché becomes more and more absorbing as the videos lead to marital tension and a revelation about the past. And then there is the end, when suddenly I wanted Harrison or Mel to show up and explain things a little better. I don’t mind a little ambiguity at the end of the movie, but I at least like to be given enough information to draw my own conclusion. Here, too much remains…hidden.

IMDb link

posted 9/16/13