Documentarian Laura Poitras is our nonfiction poet laureate of paranoia, a vérité surveyor of the global surveillance state who feels compelled to train her cameras on what's really happening – in occupied war zones (My Country, My Country), Guantanamo P.O.W. trials (The Oath), the eye of Nsa-whistleblowing shitstorms (the Oscar-winning Citizenfour). Even when she's not earning enemy-of-the-state status via aiding and abetting Edward Snowden, there's always a sense of personal danger hovering around her films as she displeases the powers that be; any or all of her movies might plausibly be called Risk.
- 5/5/2017
- Rollingstone.com
Some movies are ahead of their times, but Laura Poitras’ “Risk” has grown into its moment. When the Julian Assange documentary premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, it was a sturdy, one-sided salute to the Wikileaks founder, positioning him as a valiant defender of civil liberties and the freedom of information.
Unleashing government documents from a variety of anonymous sources, Assange is seen as a new-age journalist leaking news with purpose. The movie ended with the pale-skinned Australian trapped in the confines of London’s Ecuadorian embassy, escaping what he claims to be trumped-up sexual harassment charges designed to take him down. Poitras’ close-up access leaves us with the impression of Assange trapped in his sanctuary, hard at work, a martyr for his cause still intent on fighting on.
But a funny thing happened on the way to that revolution: Assange’s image changed dramatically...
Unleashing government documents from a variety of anonymous sources, Assange is seen as a new-age journalist leaking news with purpose. The movie ended with the pale-skinned Australian trapped in the confines of London’s Ecuadorian embassy, escaping what he claims to be trumped-up sexual harassment charges designed to take him down. Poitras’ close-up access leaves us with the impression of Assange trapped in his sanctuary, hard at work, a martyr for his cause still intent on fighting on.
But a funny thing happened on the way to that revolution: Assange’s image changed dramatically...
- 4/28/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
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