The documentary “Citizenfour,” which will be shown in the US on October 24, must have been incredibly difficult to film. Its subject is the global surveillance system, a digital enterprise that spreads without being seen.
Its scenes take place in "boring" courtrooms, electronic surveillance centers, hotels. However, Laura Poitras, who directed it, managed to make its 114 minutes vibrate with the nervous energy of revelation.
Poitras, the first journalist contacted by Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who revealed the surveillance system, is very much like her subject. She rarely appears on news programs or talk shows. She is a very discreet figure in her own film, where you hear her more than you see her.
Yet she was the one who, over 16 months, pushed a stream of revelations that led the NSA into a new era of discredit. “Citizenfour” shows the audience how much courage those of us who worked with her on reporting on the NSA had. Her film is a triumph of journalism.
At its core, “Citizenfour” is Poitras’s account of how Snowden’s revelations unfolded, from the first information he sent her, hinting at what was to come, to the moment he saw himself vindicated when he became a role model (the film takes its title from the pseudonym Snowden used in his communications with Poitras). The period leading up to her meeting with Snowden is symbolized by a car traveling through a dark tunnel, dimly lit by red lights on the roof, until sunlight bursts in as she and her colleagues, Glenn Greenwald and Ewan MacAskill of The Guardian, arrive in Hong Kong for the fateful meeting.
The outline of the story is now known. Snowden, a “subcontractor” for the NSA, provides journalists with a wealth of evidence of an industrial-scale surveillance that covers much of the world’s communications and, in the process, gives up hope of living a normal life. Poitras focuses her lens on both sides of Snowden’s decision.
Explaining in an understandable way how the surveillance system works, and why it matters, becomes more chilling the deeper one digs into the NSA's "treasure trove.".
A very effective way of demonstrating the scope of surveillance is the filming of researcher and journalist Jacob Applebaum as he informs Occupy Wall Street protesters about the living standards revealed through their credit cards, travel documents, and phone records: the web of data that reveals our relationships and choices and that, regardless of reality, can make us look suspicious. Anyone who uses modern means of communication has unwittingly provided the NSA with valuable information.
Since June 2013, Snowden has become a global icon, often provoking paranoid reactions (Russian spy! Chinese scoundrel!) from people who question his motives, whether intentionally or not. Although he is often portrayed as arrogant, especially by self-serving bureaucrats, Snowden tells Poitras, Greenwald and McCaskill that he wants journalists to decide what should be published, not him. He is unusually calm as he realizes that he is now the target of a perpetual pursuit. But his eyes redden and his shoulders hunch as he realizes the burden he has placed on his family and his girlfriend – whom he recently reunited with in Russia, a country where he never intended to settle.
Lack of fear
The film leaves many questions unanswered, such as Wikileaks’ role in the Snowden drama – Julian Assange appears very briefly on camera – and Snowden’s living conditions in Russia, which granted him asylum. However, “Citizenfour” shows that Snowden has been vindicated, when it confirms that Greenwald, Poitras and their collaborator Jeremy Shackel are now working with a new “insider” informant, someone who was apparently inspired by Snowden. Although he avoids showing it, Snowden seems moved by this development. Given the passions that the revelations have stirred, the calm and sobriety that characterizes “Citizenfour” is remarkable. One of its few emotionally charged moments is when Snowden and Greenwald discuss the spirit that motivated both the report and Snowden’s decision to come forward. Greenwald describes it as “the lack of fear and ‘enough is enough.’” It was this lack of fear that attracted Snowden to Poitras, and it shows through her camera.
Source: left.gr
