Citizenfour

USA (2014)

It is the Edward Snowden's story. Snowden worked for the NSA (US National Security Agency), an organization to protect American citizens against “bad guys”. The problem is that NSA is full of “bad guys”; he realised this corporation was spying millions of people via sophisticated systems operating under a secret project called PRISM. The most important US companies, such as Apple, Google or AT&T, had(have) set up agents to send private data to NSA surveillance infrastructure. It is absolutely unconstitutional and as soon as Edward discovered it, he decided to reveal this serious offence. The problem is, in the USA if you attack these kind of institutions you are a traitor. Edward knowns that and, since he doesn't want to go to jail, he prepared an elaborated plan to disclose all the information and runaway later. This documentary shows how Snowden contact Laura Poitras from Hong Kong in order to explain how NSA operates. In real time, the spectator can follow how the scandal appears and how is the daily life of a persecuted Edward Snowden. A sad story of a modern hero who nowadays is still considered an “outlaw” for some countries like the USA or UK. Luckily, he is living in Russia protected by Russian laws. Good save Snowden!

In 2014 the prolific Laura Poitras (well known because of her social documentaries such as The Otah and Flag Wars) filmed Citizenfour a tremendous success, winner of 41 awards (including Oscar) Really, the documentary is extremely simple; Laura is very “lucky” because Edward decided to reveal shocking information in front of Laura's camera. Well, to be fair, Snowden chose Laura because of her career as human rights & freedom defender. The most interesting part of the film is the beginning, explaining how Edward contact Laura and the personal Edward's life. It is terrible to realise how a human being has to compromise his life to fight against the injustice. He was aware of that situation and explained how he will leave his girlfriend, his family and his friends. Very hard choice. On the other hand, the fact of filming the documentary at the same time that the real scandal appeared, gives more realism and strength to the piece, surprising how the Poitras' environment was able to keep Edward in a secret hotel for several weeks. The rest of the documentary are basically static interviews (without technical content) in the Edward's room and comments of the journalists. Too simple stuff just saved by the astonishing Snwoden confession.

Mark: 7.7

To Remember: How Laura's team faced the risk of revealing and filming (in real time) one of the biggest espionage cases in the history.
To Forget: The structure is too simple and the content is not technical enough.


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Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons.