(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
CITIZEN FOUR. (Review 1 of 2)
Directed by: Laura Poitras, photo: Trevor Paglen and others
When your face starts to appear on T-shirts around the world so often that you compete with Che Guevara to be the preferred freedom hero, you know that your message has reached. In Edward Snowden's case, the message was that the United States and the United Kingdom monitor most of the communications around the world, and store this information in giant searchable archives. Individuals or groups of individuals can also be "flagged" so that the stored information can be used as an instrument to chart citizens' future movements. But the very surveillance, which we still do not know the scope of, is just part of a much bigger picture: It puts, first and foremost, enormous pressure on democracy and the free press, and is probably the largest governmental breach of civil society's right to privacy in story.
Director Laura Poitras gives us what has been missing so far: a defining narrative that explains Snowden's message, introduces us to the man behind it, and acts as a movie in itself. CITIZEN FOUR is a very successful documentary that wisely reflects on various aspects of the Snowden case. It primarily revolves around the core situation of the disclosures: the high-intensity days at a small Hong Kong hotel room where Snowden tells his story to Poitras and Guardian journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill. "The NSA is building the largest suppression tool in human history," Snowden said in an email to Poitras before the China meeting. Through CITIZEN FOUR we get a first-hand insight into what happened during those fateful hours.
Visibility. One of the big pluses of the film is its ability to switch between the big lines and intimate details. During the interview with Snowden, the perspective of a flexible camera changes frequently close up, for facade images and overview images of Hong Kong. This is pervasive throughout the film: conversations, discussions and confidences are placed within a geography – that is, the frame of the recognizable city with its ditto architectural profile. The choice of Trevor Paglen as responsible cinematographer is interesting in that respect; his special are inventive viewpoints on the surveillance state. As the photographer says: Although the secret activity is difficult to spot, it actually has a visibility through architecture and logistics. The institutions are secret, but people have to make use of them during construction work; the materials come from somewhere – and they must be transported to where they are to be used. The secret also has a particular architectural form, and is found in specific places in the world. This way of thinking is repeatedly expressed in the film when various monitoring agencies are documented. For example, we see the NSA's Center for Storing Listened Phone Calls in Bluffdale, Utah, which began in 2011. The pictures depict trivial construction work and unfinished industrial buildings; nothing reveals what is actually going to be there – yet the "outermost layer" of the secret is visible. Towards the end of the film we see pictures from Bude in England where the transatlantic communication cables from the US to the British surveillance organization GHCQ arrive at the coastal strip. We do not see the cables themselves or what goes through them, but we can place the place they meet the mainland on the map. If we do, it will emerge a pattern – and in parallel with Snowden's exposure of covert surveillance, we will thus – through Paglen – receive an urgent call to look for places where the secret operations appear, even if we do not have the same access to secretly stamped info like Edward Snowden.
Fine-tuned. CITIZEN FOURs main concern is natural enough to portray Snowden. In a costly scene, we see him encrypt Greenwald's computer. He draws a blanket over his head to avoid any cameras mounted in the room filming what he writes on the keyboard. Under normal circumstances, this situation would have been paranoia ultimate, but here the state of exception has become normal. "At this point, there is nothing that will shock us anymore," Greenwald says as he laughs, with a disbelieving facial expression. Under the blanket, Snowden is also buzzing – and when Greenwald has to enter his user password so that Snowden can complete the encryption, the whistleblower tells Greewald that he can also use the blanket. There is a haunting moment where the whole gang appears as children in the boys' room, a slight moment of play, before the temporary free space is seriously dissolved again. The fact is that it is can be cameras in the room.
One of the big pluses of the film is its ability to switch between the big lines and intimate details.
Other scenes that give the film focus and respite are those that show Snowden alone. In these sequences we get a simple and effective portrait of a man who has invoked the wrath of the world's leading superpower, and – at that time – had cut across all ties to family and friends. These muted sketches of the herald become pauses in the global drama that unfolds around him, but also windows against Snowden's loneliness and actual isolation. In a poetic scene, we see him peering, suspiciously and nervously, out the window of the hotel room, through semi-transparent curtains. Subsequently, subjective camera angles are cut in that simulate Snowden's vantage point as he looks out over a cloudy and hazy Hong Kong park: We are invited to identify with him and reflect more closely on the situation he is in. Who is out there? Is anyone looking back from the park, or is he still safe? "It's a strange feeling that is difficult to describe in words," says Snowden, "not knowing what will happen the next day. It's scary, but it's liberating. " The moment before his name and motivation are published in the media globally, the ritual is repeated, but this time the curtains are drawn. He no longer wants to hide. When he is seen, they only get to see him – as countless others, at the same moment, actually do on all the world's TV screens.
There are little things like this that do CITIZEN FOUR so fine-tuned regime. These are events and details that have little informative value, but which add psychological nuances to the process and an intensity that reinforces the impression of what is being told.
Fear Culture. Towards the end of the film, we see a scene we don't expect in a modern, western, democratic society: Guardian journalist Ewen MacAskill, who was interviewing Snowden in Hong Kong, is being forced by British GHCQ to destroy the archive he has received Notifier. He drills and files in the archive – with the state's guardians by his side. It is difficult to accept that a state in the West can intervene in the freedom of the press in this way. The methods have more to do with dictatorships than with a functioning democracy – and the question that arises is thus, reasonably enough, whether the United Kingdom is indeed democratic. If we think again about Paglen, it is reasonable to assume that this single intervention in freedom of the press is only the tip of the iceberg. The visible events may be just the outer shell of the real secrets.
Michel Foucault's thoughts on disciplining the citizen here give an expression he could hardly imagine
CITIZEN FOUR is an essential story of our time that everyone should see. It tells how far the state actually goes to trump through its own interests and control the population, at the expense of civil society's democratic foundations. This redefines the foundations and legitimacy of the entire political and legal apparatus, and is not only a threat to democracy, but also to privacy. This is more radical than one might immediately think: in reality, such a basis is laid for a culture of fear, because we know that the state can hear what you say, see what you are looking for, and find out who you are with. Michel Foucault's thoughts on disciplining the citizen here give an expression he could hardly imagine.
Snowden is part of a long tradition of intellectuals who state the state's injustice to its citizens. Already Henry William David Thoreau writes in Civil disobedience (1849) that citizens have a duty to break the law when the state is unfair or goes beyond its mandate. This film is a school example of civil courage – let's hope it inspires all of us to say whether we see or hear something we know is not as it should be.
Ny Tid chose to cover this important film with two perspectives, a criticism from Røed and a criticism from Huser.
See also this week's leader here.
