Navalny
supervision: Daniel Loher, 2022
The tragic death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a remote Siberian labor camp has prompted this reader to examine the most valuable surviving filmography of a remarkable human rights activist. Before beginning this analysis, it should be noted that those who have worked with Alexei have found some of his opinions on issues such as immigration to the Russian Federation and the specificity of global human rights provision to be at least conservative. Moreover, his impulsiveness and unwavering commitment to his course of action have likely earned him as many enemies as friends.
Nevertheless, the fact that so many people have publicly mourned Alexei’s death, despite the tightest security perimeters, is a tribute to his significance in the post-Soviet environment where Putin’s regime systematically purges protesters. This 2022 film happily portrays Alexei Navalny as “warts and all” and is all the more worthy for that reason. So this review will certainly not be read as a hagiography.
Directed by Daniel Roher and produced by Odessa Rae and others, this 2022 film is a landmark in the history of civil rights and, in particular, the Russian Federation. Among those who give extensive testimony in this presentation are Alexei Navalny himself, as well as other prominent activists such as Yulia Navalnaya, Maria Pevchikh, Christo Grozev, and Leonid Volkov. The 98-minute film features outstanding cinematography by Niki Waltl, edited by Maya Hawke and others, and a widely acclaimed score by Marius de Vries. Production involved HBO MAX, CNN Films, and others, and the film was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and Fathom Events.
Navalny premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2022 and won the 95th Academy Awards, Choice Documentary Award, and the 76th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA). It primarily investigates Navalny’s poisoning. On August 20, 2020, Navalny was poisoned with Novichok nerve gas and showed symptoms on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He was taken to a hospital in Omsk after an emergency landing. Still in a coma, he was evacuated to Charité Hospital in Berlin, Germany two days later. The use of the nerve gas was confirmed by five internationally respected organizations, including the United Nations Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and by several accredited German laboratories. Navalny blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the poisoning. The Kremlin has denied involvement, as it has in recent years, in state media. For years, he has been accused of Kogo Nikogda Ne Upominayuth‘Unmentionable’.
In the film, Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev and Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation investigator Maria Pevchikh reveal details of the Putin plot, which Roher describes as “the story of one man and his struggle against an authoritarian regime.” Roher assembles a vast amount of previously unseen footage. in fact Kremlin fugitive. Navalny’s wife is featured extensively. Bellingcat has pieced together exactly what happened in the lead up to August 2020. The plot is like a political thriller, but (as Navalny keeps reminding us) “this is what really happened.” The content is not about the unprecedented corruption of the Russian government, but rather the political facade of Russia. Putin is portrayed as a narcissistic figure.
Navalny became a prisoner of conscience, but he had the courage to return to Russia. Apart from brief cell phone and news clips, there is scant footage of him recovering from his Novichok poisoning or in Russian and German hospitals (his wife explains that he refused to be photographed during that time). A crucial phone call between Navalny and an unknown Putin agent is captured on film confirming his poisoning. Navalny suggests to Loher, “Let’s make this a thriller.” “Then when I die, you can make a boring movie out of my memory.”
(BBC Two) The commentary on the screening provides a brief history of Navalny’s pro-democracy activities. He sometimes seems like a provocateur and investigative journalist. Again, to show that he is no saint, the film explores Navalny’s convenient alliance with the far right. For Navalny, social media is both a weapon and a shield. For example, when he and his wife Yulia boarded a flight back to Moscow, he was “welcomed by a forest of mobile phones filming, rather than annoyed. When you’re opposing a regime that shrouds your actions in darkness, you can never have too much light.” But Navalny undoubtedly overestimated the protection his reputation afforded.
The film mocks the inherent stupidity and blatant bigotry of his opponents. At one point, a Kremlin-sponsored talk show lashes out at liberals and their “endless homosexuality” with accounts of Navalny’s weakness and near-death experience. Putin goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid mentioning Navalny’s name. Navalny appears to be the moral winner from start to finish. Post-Soviet realpolitik has a way of trampling on narrative justice. As Loher puts it: “The film ends in a gloom that is made all the more palpable by our knowledge of where Putin is taking Russia…”
The Russian opposition leader, who was allegedly murdered while working as a guest in Putin’s prison, is a natural actor in this film. Mr Navalny abbreviates Putin’s cunning as “moscow4.” According to Navalny in a clip included as part of the film, “when Mr Putin’s senior intelligence officer was hacked (his password was moscow1), he changed it to moscow2. When that was hacked, he changed it to moscow3. This shows Navalny’s view that the Kremlin’s brutality is a natural consequence of its gross incompetence and stupidity. His story, as depicted in the film, resonates particularly in Britain. While he survived the atrocities that are the focus of the film, British national Dawn Sturgess did not. The innocent British citizen was fatally shot by a Novichok on British soil in 2018 as a chaotic by-product of Russian agents’ bungled attempt to kill former agent Sergei Skripal.
What do we really know about the horrific fate of the man depicted in the film? According to the Russian account, the 47-year-old collapsed after a short walk and never regained consciousness. Navalny’s health deteriorated during his three years in prison. Despite this, he appeared healthy in a courtroom video the day before his death. The weight of international opinion does not match Russia’s account of what happened at IK-3, or “Polar Wolf,” one of the harshest prisons in the country. French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournay said Navalny “gave his life” “for resisting Russian repression,” adding that his death was a reminder of “the reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime.” Navalny’s wife Yulia simply said, “We cannot trust Putin and his government.”
The Russian Interfax news agency reported that medics spent 30 minutes trying to resuscitate him. According to prison authorities, doctors were on his way within two minutes, and an ambulance arrived within six. If true, this would be a record-breaking record for even the best hospitals in Moscow. In the months since Navalny was jailed on charges of “extremism” and “corruption,” his allies and lawyers have issued various warnings that his condition is worsening. In 2021, his campaigners revealed that he was building a billion-dollar palace for Putin on the Black Sea. This film captures it all.
The least we can say is that Navalny joins the many victims of the “sudden death syndrome in Russia.” Many were outspoken Putin critics, former allies turned threats like mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigogine, or critics who had insulted the Kremlin. Among the last group was the 65-year-old “sausage tycoon” Pavel Antonov, who fell to his death. Another was businessman Vladimir Budanov. And the head of the Russian oil giant Lukoil, Ravil Maganov, who fell from a window of a Moscow hospital. Before him were the charismatic opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote a book about the Russian police state, and Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who criticized Putin and whose car was found to contain polonium-210. In response, the Russian public is fed only crude and state-sponsored fabrications. Such films help to compensate for one of the biggest challenges in debunking the Putin regime: the lack of verification. As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, Navalny will probably always be remembered as the greatest demystifier of Russian state propaganda. It is sad to think that his death bore all the hallmarks of state-sanctioned murder.
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