Citizenfour is a documentary made by filmmaker Laura Poitras, who had previously made films about the War in Iraq and the aftermath of 9/11. Poitras originally set out to make a film about the intelligence community of the United States, but is contacted by an anonymous person who calls himself Citizenfour through encrypted emails. He says that he will be in Hong Kong for eight days and he has something that he wants to tell her and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald (who he had tried to contact unsuccessfully). When they get to Hong Kong, they discover that Citizenfour is an NSA (National Security Agency) contractor named Edward Snowden, who is about to blow the whistle on the US government basically spying on the rest of the world.
The style of this documentary is really engaging. The film doesn't have a clear structure from the beginning, usually you know where a documentary is going because the filmmaker lays it out for you, almost as though the story is told retroactively, but you find out things as Poitras discovers them too. The film also has no narration, which can be a little disconcerting, but we are given information through the emails shared by Poitras and Snowden.
The main crux of the film is the eight days spent in Hong Kong with Snowden and it's here that you learn so much about the man, despite him saying that he doesn't want to share any of his private life in order to protect his loved ones. He stays composed throughout, but you can tell he is nervous about the consequences of his actions. This does extend to both Poitras and Greenwald, who don't return to the US after the story is released.
There are no proper interviews that you would find in a regular doco. Poitras points the camera at both Snowden and his interviewer, either Greenwald or fellow Guardian journalist Ewen MacAskill. This places you in the shoes of Poitras and makes you feel as though as you are in the room as these meetings take place. When Wikileaks founder Julian Assange features in the film, you'd expect a long interview with him about how great Snowden is, instead we get a minute of him arranging a private jet for Snowden to take him from Moscow Airport (where he was residing at the time) to Ecuador or Venezuela (who will give him refugee status).
Citizenfour is a remarkable documentary that really shows how we are being monitored, but also how we are being lied to by the governments who are supposed to be protecting us. I wish I could see the unedited footage of Snowden during the time he was in Hong Kong and all the information that didn't make it to the film.
The style of this documentary is really engaging. The film doesn't have a clear structure from the beginning, usually you know where a documentary is going because the filmmaker lays it out for you, almost as though the story is told retroactively, but you find out things as Poitras discovers them too. The film also has no narration, which can be a little disconcerting, but we are given information through the emails shared by Poitras and Snowden.
The main crux of the film is the eight days spent in Hong Kong with Snowden and it's here that you learn so much about the man, despite him saying that he doesn't want to share any of his private life in order to protect his loved ones. He stays composed throughout, but you can tell he is nervous about the consequences of his actions. This does extend to both Poitras and Greenwald, who don't return to the US after the story is released.
There are no proper interviews that you would find in a regular doco. Poitras points the camera at both Snowden and his interviewer, either Greenwald or fellow Guardian journalist Ewen MacAskill. This places you in the shoes of Poitras and makes you feel as though as you are in the room as these meetings take place. When Wikileaks founder Julian Assange features in the film, you'd expect a long interview with him about how great Snowden is, instead we get a minute of him arranging a private jet for Snowden to take him from Moscow Airport (where he was residing at the time) to Ecuador or Venezuela (who will give him refugee status).
Citizenfour is a remarkable documentary that really shows how we are being monitored, but also how we are being lied to by the governments who are supposed to be protecting us. I wish I could see the unedited footage of Snowden during the time he was in Hong Kong and all the information that didn't make it to the film.
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