Entertaining, But Questionable Fact-Checking
Other than seeing the name "WikiLeaks" in news headlines, I previously knew nothing about it. The idea of a "true story" documentary about it was very intriguing to me. As a documentary, it is entertaining, captivating, and left me wanting more.
I went to WikiLeaks.org and found they had posted an annotated transcript of the movie. To my disappointment, the annotations pointed out "The film is filled with factual errors and speculation..." and provided links to all the sources to the contrary facts.
WikiLeaks also states "Neither Julian Assange nor anyone associated with WikiLeaks agreed to participate in this film. Any footage of Assange or WikiLeaks' staff was taken from stock footage. WikiLeaks has, however, co-operated with a film by respected Academy Award-nominated film- maker Laura Poitras, which will be out later this year. Another film, co-produced with Ken Loach's 16 Films, will be released shortly".
After reading the annotations, I felt...
Waiting for a Better Doc
On the good news side, "We Steal Secrets" is fast-paced, engaging and entertaining. It raises some interesting questions -- though more so about the nature of hero worship than about Wikileaks, and that is its downfall. There are so many huge, open questions about Wikileaks, about its ethics and its ongoing impact on the world and this doc really only scrapes that surface, preferring instead to spend its precious time on the prurient stuff about gender dysphoria and broken condoms.
To some degree, Alex Gibney's ability to tell a fully fleshed-out story was limited by who he had access to -- not Assange, not Manning and not anyone who has a current relationship with either of them. One can argue that this was the fault of Assange, who chose not to participate in this film for whatever reason (he tells a different story from Gibney, and there's no way to know what really happened there), or one can argue that Gibney rushed a film that should have taken a more painstaking...
What should have been informative became too personal...
We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks is a mixed bag at best. On the plus side, We Steal Secrets is brilliantly crafted, well-filmed and edited, and fast-paced and as exciting as a Hollywood thriller. On the negative side, the director clearly had a personal vendetta against Assange by the end, giving too much light to fishy stories of assault in Sweden and his melancholy time holed up in various safe houses.
I have no idea why Alex Gibney, obviously a fine director, chose such obviously one-sided sources. We mostly hear from outcasts like Daniel Domscheit-Berg and other "former" WikiLeaks supporters, and too much screentime is given to some extremely questionable stories from the woman Assange allegedly sexually assaulted. Neither Bradley Manning nor Julian Assange were directly interviewed, which is obviously a huge blow to the film. We Steal Secrets starts out hopeful and mysterious, detailing the huge leaks perpetrated by conflicted soldier Bradley Manning, and the...
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