Citizenfour (2014)

CITIZENFOUR  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Laura Poitras
The strange case of Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who spilled the beans on how the government went from spying on possible terrorists to spying on virtually everybody in the years after 9/11. There's a theory of film that says every movie is a documentary about its own making , and that's true of this one more than most. Poitras was in contact with Snowden before the story broke, and she and her camera are in the Hong Kong hotel room when Snowden starts talking and leaking the news. It's not unusual for documentaries to get up close to the people and events they document, but the case of "Citizenfour" is exceptional. Poitras isn't just reporting the story, her participation makes her a player in it, too. She's eavesdropping on history directly, as it occurs, and watching her movie, so are we. Snowden himself remains something of an enigma, a brilliant guy with a conscience who took an enormous personal risk. For somebody who claims he has no skill or expertise at what he and the filmmakers are doing, he's remarkably composed and articulate onscreen. (As he prepares to leave the hotel for a future that's anything but certain, he also looks visibly scared.) What he did was illegal, but was it wrong? We're still wrangling over that one, but in a world where we're all being hacked, it's clear that the rules have changed in a way that's profoundly disturbing. Don't expect the debate to end any time soon.