Citizenfour [Review by Haus]

Citizenfour is a stunning documentary, one I scarcely believe exists. It’s the ultimate fly-on-the-wall look at Edward Snowden‘s 2013 NSA reveal.

You’ve probably heard that when Snowden blew the whistle on the sheer magnitude of NSA domestic wiretapping and surveillance last summer, he did so from a hotel room in Hong Kong. What you may not know is that Snowden — formerly a senior sysadmin-type at the NSA with access to all classes of intelligence — orchestrated this leak first by contacting filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald through ultra-secure digital channels using the name “Citizenfour.” Once satisfied that they could be trusted to establish a secure line, Snowden arranged to meet with the pair in Hong Kong for about a week, and — this was news to me — Poitras filmed the whole thing, live and as it happened. Add equal parts Jeff Skoll’s money and a Steven Soderbergh producer credit, and that footage became this film.

You can now watch a week’s worth of a justifiably suspicious twenty-something unplugging his bedside phone, typing passwords under a blanket, and staring nervously out the window. And you should, because it’s important and frankly awesome.

Snowden’s secret (sorry, Joseph Heller) was one of the biggest news triumphs of the decade, exposing warrantless data collection across virtually all digital media and devices and reaching every American and pretty much everyone else in the world. The extent and reach of this surveillance will prove surprising to most viewers. And to watch all this unfold live is something I quite honestly never expected to see. It’s a riveting real-world thriller.

Snowden himself is stark, unrehearsed, and actually quite engaging in a tech-cred sort of way. He’s smart, calm, and articulate — he speaks in reasoned, proper, complete sentences, which so few people do and I always find refreshing and a bit unnerving in practice. He’s also resigned to his eventual fate, and expresses a surprisingly well-reasoned view of his role in all this (although he’s still a bit shaken when the authorities nab his girlfriend, who he’s carefully kept in the dark). Say what you want about the guy, but it’s clear he did not take any aspect of this decision lightly, and to the extent possible in this entropic world he thought out all the angles before making his move. He seems at peace with what he’s doing, a feeling presumably made a good deal easier by the enormity of the transgressions he’s about to publicize.

The film does a good job setting the stage for Snowden’s revelation, and doesn’t crowd him out with documentary staples like flashy graphics or talking heads or unending voiceovers. Poitras wisely yields the limelight and lets Snowden explain what’s going on. Quite simply, we’re just in the room and along for the ride. This behind-the-scenes glimpse at the discussions that undergirded all those huge news scoops last summer is catnip for voyeurs, policy wonks, and news junkies alike.

This whole film is richly ironic: just think how desperately the eavesdroppers yearned to know what was going on in that very room. To now release a high-def, uncut look behind that curtain is a defiant screw you to the surveillance state, one that mirrors what Snowden himself is doing. Citizenfour left me grateful that Snowden did what he did, though I don’t envy his permanent Muscovite exile. And I’m grateful as well that such a level-headed and experienced journalist as Glenn Greenwald was there to broker the deal.

If you’re looking for a whiz-bang night at the movies, this is not your ticket. But there are plenty of those, and only one of these. Put your thinking cap on, unplug your phone, and go see Citizenfour.

Haus Verdict: Its existence alone a rare treat, this contemplative and rightly paranoid behind-the-scenes look at Snowden’s NSA surveillance leak is important, level-headed, carefully done, and absolutely worth seeing.