Alicia I love this movie so much

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Clifton Johnson Parts of this film felt oddly personality-driven: How will Edward Snowden dress today? What are his facial expressions while watching the news? But really it is an exploration of what we're willing to sacrifice for our principles...and for our freedoms. For all its faults, watching this story unfold in real time is compelling and worthwhile.

virek213 Not since Daniel Ellsberg broke the extreme illegality of America's involvement of the Vietnam War with his release of the Pentagon Papers had any government contractor dared to defy their employers and made public huge government dissembling that affected the lives of every man, woman, and child living inside the boundaries of the United States. Just before the end of 2012, an individual who identified himself in e-mails as "Citizenfour" revealed to documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras all-too-convincing evidence that the U.S. intelligence complex, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and most of the major communications conglomerates, were engaged in mass surveillance against the nation's own people in the years and decades following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As it turned out, "Citizenfour" would be identified as Edward Joseph Snowden. In June 2013, Poitras and noted journalist Glenn Greenwald interviewed Snowden at a high-rise hotel in Hong Kong in which he revealed the first huge batch of what he knew. The end result was Snowden becoming one of the most wanted men in history. What also resulted was the Oscar-winning, and disturbing, 2014 documentary CITIZENFOUR.Poitras had already done two documentaries (2006's MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY; 2010's THE OATH) that touched on post-9/11 America; and CITIZENFOUR expands on those two films to focus on what the deaths of nearly 3,000 people on that dark late summer day in 2001 unleashed in the bowels of the intelligence community inside the United States. Poitras, along with Greenwald and MacAskill (the last two of whom worked at the British newspaper The Guardian) went and interviewed Snowden in Hong Kong; and a lot of that interview involves Snowden's chillingly detailed information about how every branch of the intelligence community, and their contractors, including the one (Booz Allen) that Snowden had worked for, used its expertise to monitor the activities of everyone at practically every second of their public and online lives during the day. The revelations that Snowden allowed Greenwald to make public turned out to be every bit as explosive in the media and to the American public as advertised, and then some. Not surprisingly, the kind of paranoia that developed among the three of them in that tenth floor Hong Kong hotel room was extraordinary. And once the first revelations were made public, Snowden was charged with three crimes, two under the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917, basically putting him in the crosshairs of the entire United States government, which was shamed by his revelations, and making him a target for the ultimate charge of Treason.The revelations that Snowden makes to Poitras, Greenwald, and MacAskill (which director Oliver Stone dramatized in his 2016 film SNOWDEN) in his Hong Kong hotel room, along with the e-mail messages he delivers to Poitras and Greenwald while on the run, reveal a great deal about the things the United States government has been doing, to a great degree because of electronic encryption software that was of Snowden's own design, to track the movements of every American citizen possible. It is likely that Snowden first identified himself to Poitras as "Citizenfour" because of his concerns about how the massive bulk-collection program being carried out violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. This amendment guarantees that the government cannot search and seize a person or his property without proper cause; but the Patriot Act, signed into law just after 9/11 by then-president George W. Bush after being passed by a Congress that read not one single page of it, basically superseded it (with the acquiescence of a fearful American public) in the name of National Security. In essence, both CITIZENFOUR, and, two years later, SNOWDEN seem not only to indict Bush and, later, Obama in this whole scandal, but to a fair extent We The People in the bargain.The years following the 9/11 attacks saw a huge explosion in the number of feature-length documentaries being made, including Michael Moore's infamous FAHRENHEIT 9/11, and more sober ones like Eugene Jarecki's WHY WE FIGHT, and Charles Ferguson's NO END IN SIGHT. CITIZENFOUR, whose Oscar win in 2014 was richly justified, should be considered another essential addition to the number of films which speak the truth against government power and overreach. It is as darkly spooky as any fictional high-tech espionage thriller, like MINORITY REPORT or THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, and thanks to its being based on contemporary events, every bit as scary.

robin-benson A fascinating and amazing story about lengths a government will go to know everything and deny they are doing it ("...we were lying for national security reasons") but I wonder how many people will watch this documentary twice. The problem I found with Laura Poitras's film is that the subject isn't really visual. This would have been a wonderful long forme article in the New Yorker, Atlantic or Vanity Fair where copy editors knock it into shape to make every word count. Thankfully there is no print equivalent of out of focus camera work, visual padding with no commentary, white noise background sound (prevalent at the start of the film) or sloppy filming of three men, in a Hong Kong hotel, discussing how to leak secrets. It could all have been summed up in a few thousand words and two or three photos in a magazine.

visualandwriting Edward Snowden, 29 years old former employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, the man who provided evidence for the existence of "PRISM" program, the National Security Agency contractor, an outlaw, a wanted person. For some, he is a hero, for others a traitor. What guided him, intrigues not only the whole world but also the director. Careful observation of a person with paranoia, who knows the ins and outs of the world's surveillance. CitizenFour with "My Land" and "The Oath" by Laura Poitras may be included in the political trilogy, presenting the US post 9/11 events. The first two films related to the war in Iraq. In a broader aspect, these films are a contribution to a commentary about the trauma of terrorism. Citizenfour is a documentary immortalizing eight Hong Kong's days in Edward Snowden's life. The movie was shot during journalist disclosure from The Guardian: Gleen Greene and Ewen MacAskill from The Washington Post, on US bugging systems. In January 2013 years, Laura Poitras began to receive emails from the user nicknamed"citizen four". Letters contented spokes of possession, evidence for the existence of the NSA surveillance program and were able to demonstrate the relationship between state agencies and private companies. Big Internet corporations like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Youtube were involved. They depended on the surveillance network and also stretched to a telecommunications company collects information used social networking sites, email accounts, VoIP gateway. What's more, the information also exposed the phone -hacking worldwide cooperation. In a face of those facts, she the director could not pass by. Contact was kept in a secret from the world, the price for recklessly was too high. After five months, Laura and journalists meet in Honk Kong. From that moment on, camera wanders, keeps an eye on them, record everything that happens around Edward, clings to the form. Most of the events take place at the hotel. Claustrophobic, cramped room, which becomes a metaphor for paranoia, in which Edward lives. The creators draw the viewer into a world of internal events. The interview is interrupted several times by telephone from the outside. Someone has information that in the hotel is a whistle blower and he wants to talk to him. Snowden full of suspicion lies the lady from reception drawls information all in defense of his life. In the end, they move to another room, where no one will bother them. We are in the center of events, don't know whom to trust and who not. We know when the characters disappear when hiding from the establishment. There is a threat. You feel the thrill and suspicion. Paranoia effectively granted heroes and spectators. CitizenFour focuses on the activist, what drove him, how he thinks, how behaves? It turns out that in the whirlpool of scandal, shocking information and facts is the man who had the civil courage to sacrifice his well-being, for larger, more important cause. The director creates a very private image of Edward. Locked in a small room, weighing his words, covers the notebook camera, hiding from technology. In the film, Edward is a balanced man, calm and aware of consequences. His common looks are significant, here is the boy who was brought up in the spirit of the American democratic consciousness. The logic of his statements and control what he says, how he thinks attracts the viewer. Will not find in him the desire of fame, the hero himself says explicitly that does not want to conceal the problem, about which informs. It is easy to oppose his character to Julian Assange. The Australian is determined hacktivist, uncompromising and anti-establishment. At all costs, he wants to share gained information. His data leading awareness, on the consequences in human life (disclosure of the names of agents on foreign territory) is distant to the American.Snowden opts for other solutions.Protagonists are accompanied by an aura of mystery and danger. These treatments reflect the circumstances of the world, which we will live in. Always in hiding, paranoia, network eavesdropping and constant uncertainty. There's no denying that the director turns up the atmosphere of threat. Citizenfour is an example of a film touching the interesting topic. This film is interesting not because of the form, but what undertakes.Read more on visualandwriting.com