Filmed over a six year period, Laura Poitras' Risk is a complex and endlessly intriguing commentary on power, morality, transparency, ego, and hubris, an ever-evolving documentary which set out to provide an in-depth character study of Julian Assange, the founder of Wiki Leaks. Providing an intimate, observant study of a complex situation, Risk is a film that asks a lot of thought-provoking questions about power structures in society, human nature's primal desire for power and control, and the lack of certainty about nearly everything, a film which uses the mysterious and intriguing man in Julian Assange to raise much larger questions about morality, truth, and privacy in the information age. Following Julian Assange and Wikileaks rise to prominence over the past decade, Risk masterfully deconstructs how much like the CIA or NSA, Wikileaks has become a powerful and secretive institution, one where transparency itself is non-existent. Detailing the allegations of sexual misconduct that have plagued both Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, as well as Jacob Appelbaum, one of the primary forces behind Tor, Poitras' film examines how no community or institution is beyond potential corruption, deconstructing the toxic effect which power can have over all things, whether it's a malicious government agency, or a hacking institution which is dedicated to the "truth". In Poitras' Risk, truth itself is a fleeting idea, as the film examines through its character study of Assange how objective truth almost feels like a thing of the past, with these various power structures, whether it be the US Intelligence Agnecy, the Russian intelligence agency, or Wikileaks itself, all competing to indoctrinate the individual with their version of truth. While the film is observational and unbiased for much of its running time, Risk does abruptly overstep its bounds in its assured, suggestive nature it has towards the 2016 election, a jarring and quite frankly hypocritical assertion by Poitras' who herself seems to now recognize the intelligence communities' truth more than Wikileaks. While no one truly knows the truth, only the version which they choose to believe, the film's desire to take this position, that Russian hackers influenced the 2016 election, is disappointing for a filmmaking such a Poitras, who lets the ego and hubris of Assange and his seemingly power hungry nature distract from making the larger commentary about our political system and societal structures, one which aims to deceive the individual and common-man in the quest for power and control, where motives and contradictions are common place, a concept which applies to nearly every governmental institution as well as Assange's Wikileaks. Following the footsteps of Snowden, Lauren Poitras' Risk is another endlessly fascinating examination of the information age, examining institutional power through its in-depth analysis of Wikileaks and Assange, showcasing how the lines between truth, reality, and fiction in the information age have become more blurred.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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