Alex Gibney is one of the strongest documentarians working
today. He’s basically the embodiment of the more investigative, journalistic
side of the art form, diving head-long into incredibly intricate and invariably
depressing subjects, managing to unearth gold more times than not. We last
caught up with him with the 2015 Scientology documentary Going Clear, a film so
effective that I still can’t listen to Bohemian Rhapsody without feeling
slightly ill. And with his latest, he’s getting into a topic that might be even
dicier than going through David Miscavige’s dirty laundry: Putin’s Russia.
At the forefront, this is a look at Russia after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, in particular the experimentation with
capitalism that led to the Russian oligarchy. It’s quite incisive in its
depiction of the raw mechanics involved, transitioning from communism to
free-trade capitalism to the oligarchy of seven businessmen that basically
controlled at least half of the national economy, eventually leading to Putin.
It’s a real ‘one extreme to the other’ situation, and beyond the information
upload it provides, it also gives way to something quite unexpected: Comedy.
The film’s title is likely a reference to the legendary
Citizen Kane which, given the film’s exposés on the banks, mass media and how
the two intermingle with the political sphere, ends up being very appropriate.
But it also embodies the film’s perspective on Russian politics in a more
upfront fashion: It’s one big narrative production. It’s a farce where the
punchline is a conveniently-disposed opponent. It’s a drama written by the
hands with the highest tax bracket (not that they usually bother with taxes to
begin with).
Despite being told from the perspective of an American, it
shares an artistic sensibility with modern Russian cinema, particularly the
nihilistic predeterminism of Andrey Zvygintsev’s Leviathan or Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole. It’s just filtered through the kind of pitch-black humour
that Armando Iannucci would sink his teeth into. Whether it’s the insanely
cringey propaganda clips (no matter how many times I see it, Putin singing
Blueberry Hill will never not be morbidly fascinating), the frankly bizarre
charges brought against the titular Citizen, or his grin-inducing response to
said charges, there is a much-appreciated vein of darker comedy that helps the
heavy cargo loads of intel sink more easily into the audience’s ears.
But what about Citizen K himself? Well, while the film is
ultimately a timeline of post-Soviet Russia, it is also a stranger-than-fiction
biography that continues to highlight Gibney’s knack for being in just the
right room at just the right time to get just the right info. Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
in keeping with the farcical tone of the bigger political insights, is the unlikely
hero. A man who went from middle-class banality to a place as one of Russia’s
men-behind-the-curtain, and then the enemy of the state, and in turn, friend
of the people.
Aside from his depiction during his egregiously kangaroo
court case, which flips modern political perceptions by showing the Russian
troll as the good guy, his character arc as captured by Gibney is quite
captivating stuff. When it seems that ultra-rich philanthropists are being
treated with more cynicism than ever, the film doesn’t try and change that
perception, but rather show a rather fascinating exception to the rule.
Or, more accurately, a possible exception to the
rule, and it’s here where the film earns the height of my respects. Gibney
shows a clear and deep fascination with the story, and his subject’s place
within it, but at no point does he start broadcasting his own propaganda in the
process. He doesn’t exonerate Khodorkovsky’s past oligarchic actions, nor does
he treat them as a nullifier for his more recent political activism. Instead,
he shows the whole timeline as the story of someone who went through some major
changes as a person. Someone who went from caricature capitalist to dry hunger
striker in advocacy for someone else’s rights. It doesn’t demand sympathy, but
it does proffer the capacity for redemption, and in a cancel culture world,
that might be the most optimistic thing that can possibly be said.
Not that Khodorkovsky is the be-all-end-all of the film’s
scope; he’s mainly a focal point for everything else happening around him. And
while said happenings aren’t always enough to carry the run time (there are
some unfortunate dead spots that hold this feature back somewhat), it still
makes for an informative feature that is equal parts slyly humourous and depressing
as fuck.
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