Alex Gibney’s contemporary documentary adds extra data for the debate still raging about transparency in the digital age by focusing on its biggest celebrity, Julian Assange and the loudest whistleblower ever, Pfc Bradley Manning. Political, legal and allegedly financial restraints prevent both men from representing themselves in their on-going story. Their input, as well as that of the U.S. government, comes from the archives mainly in the form of broadcast news and in the case of Manning from his online activity. Former Wikileakers, former U.S. government officials and still working journalists help Gibney put into context this media story we have been following for the last 4 years and seek to find out more about the people who made it.
Assange and Manning are Gibney’s focus as he provides intriguing biographies about each which run through the film, discussing the ideals and passions that drive them and the qualities that enable and hinder their ability to fulfil them. Enlightening discussions regarding transparency, secrecy and propaganda are made off the back of these stories, but these philosophical issues that make Assange and Manning important don’t distract from emotional and personal core of the film, a character story without its characters.
Accordingly Gibney is unable to tell the definitive truth of the Wikileaks’ saga and he is humble enough to acknowledge as such, unlike the hardliners who make Assange out to be a martyr or a maniac. Such caricatures are an archived source of ridicule, from the US government’s baseless suggestion that Wikileaks has blood on its hands in countries the US military invaded years before to the idea the rape allegations are an unnecessarily convoluted Scandinavian-American conspiracy. Conversely Gibney’s interviewees usually factor in the many ambiguities and contradictions that forge their thinking on the issues and those involved. Most have an intimate connection with the story like Daniel Domscheit-Berg, former Wikileaks spokesperson, Adrian Lamo, the whistleblower of Bradley Manning, and one of Assange’s alleged rape victims.
What is left is a multifaceted documentary to a story most of us already have opinions about. One of the documentaries successes is rejection of the right-vs-wrong, us-versus-them that has belittled some of the issues involved and another is the elevation of the significance and profile of Bradley Manning, the loudest whistleblower we cannot hear due to his incarceration. A fascinating and emotionally engaging film that tells a story we as democratic citizens need to know if we are to understand the political implications of the digital age.
10/10
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