In the tensest moment of Citzenfour, Edward Snowden’s plans to disclose his shattering revelations of government spying appear to be thwarted with the spine-tingling trill of a fire alarm. While this turns out to be little more than maintenance in the building in which director Laura Poitras is filming, the rest of the film confirms that Snowden and reporter Glenn Greenwald’s palpable paranoia is well-founded time and time again. A story which unfolds through encrypted emails, hotel rooms and courtrooms is brought to life by Poitras’ intimate direction, accompanied by the digital rumblings of a Nine-Inch Nails album, which allows history in the making to transpire blow-by-blow with crackling tension. Snowden himself is an unlikely hero, but his formidable intellect is tempered by his unassuming, occasionally funny demeanour and what seems to be a genuine empathy for the general public and their rights. As well as being intensely relevant to our modern definitions of privacy and liberty, this Oscar-winning documentary is a timeless study of information’s potential to engender oppression. However, what really gives Citizenfour its horrific weight is how immediately the freedom not just of Snowden is under threat, but also that of the millions of people around the world who could one day find their plans to confront such all-powerful intelligence agencies even more remorselessly opposed.
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