Edward Snowden doc is as chilling as any thriller.
Review by Brandon Wolfe
One of the key traits that distinguishes Citizenfour from most documentaries is the way in which Laura Poitras’ film captures a landmark cultural moment as it occurs. Most documentaries – not all, but most – examine a subject from some distance, months or years after the fact, but Citizenfour allows us the opportunity to witness its seismic events unfold in real-time. Everyone always wishes they were a fly on the wall when something significant happens. Citizenfour puts us on that wall.
The film’s subject, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, reached out to documentarian Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald via unsolicited, encrypted emails in early 2013. Snowden designated them as the ideal vessels through which to release information to the public that he felt was crucial. In his years working as an NSA contractor, Snowden became privy to knowledge that the agency, using 9/11 as justification, had been secretly encroaching on the civil liberties of American citizens, tapping into all manner of electronic correspondence via all the major telecommunication giants, such as AT&T and Verizon. Snowden even relays that NSA employees were allowed to view live drone feeds from their work computers. Snowden, with a laudable lack of concern for his own future, felt compelled to come forward and let the world know the ways in which their personal freedoms are being infringed upon.
Snowden privately met with Poitras and Greenwald at a Hong Kong hotel in June 2013, where he spent eight days detailing everything he knew to Poitras’ camera and Greenwald’s pen. The immediacy of what we are witnessing, the voyeuristic thrill of watching an historic summit transpire right in front of our eyes, gives Citizenfour a charge that eludes less plugged-in documentaries forced to delineate major events at a remove. We watch Snowden’s initial introductions with those who will tell his story, we see the group’s reaction when the story reaches the news cycle and we witness Snowden’s hotel phone starting to blow up once the press gets wind of his identity. By the time Snowden is brushing his hair in the mirror as the news breathlessly reports on him on the TV in the next room, we are right there with him, witnessing as it occurs the moment where he crosses over from anonymity into history.
There’s a haunting quality to Citizenfour that is difficult to shake. The film often has the rhythm and cadence of a horror film or, perhaps more aptly, a paranoid ‘70s conspiracy thriller, like The Conversation or Three Days of the Condor. The minimalist score, with its unnerving low-level hum, creates a mood of palpable dread, and many of its sequences are imbued with a portentousness that keeps viewers on edge. When Snowden is interrupted continuously in his hotel room by an errant fire alarm, it visibly rattles him, as it does us. Its timing seems suspicious, even if it is just a happenstance. Snowden may be overly paranoid, but he has every reason to be.
Citizenfour does hit some dry patches. Whenever the film leaves Snowden to exam its subject matter through other avenues, it begins to grow a bit dull and monotonous. Perhaps that was unavoidable, given how electrifying the Snowden footage inherently is, but it has the end result of making the film’s flow feel stop-and-go. But whenever Snowden is on-camera, the film comes to life. The man is endlessly fascinating, intelligent as a whip while also radiating a wealth of nervous energy. Whether you admire him as courageous or consider him a traitor, it’s hard to dispute his effectiveness as a focal point.
As Snowden adapts to his whirlwind new life, unable to return to the U.S. and fearful of what consequences may lie ahead, the film ends on an especially chilling note as the man reunites with the journalists some time later after a lengthy period of laying low. Greenwald has picked up another mysterious contact and compares notes with Snowden, informing him of information from his source on just how far up the ladder the NSA’s actions go and how many people are landing on its ever-growing watchlist. The sequence is gripping for the fact that none of the parties want to speak any of this information aloud, the fear of potential listening devices forcing them to write out everything on paper and then tear it up, but also for the fact that Snowden, a man who already knew too much, is aghast at how much there is still left to learn.
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