Khodorkovsky is a documentary about the Russian oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, formerly the richest man in Russia and one of the richest people on the planet. This shows his rise to billions, his run as an influential man in Russian and World politics and philanthropy and his ultimate fall, after crossing president/emperor Putin.
As with all oligarchs, he gained his wealth quickly as the former communist state sold off it's industries to a handful of individuals for little or no money. Khodorkovsky, a chemist working in oil extraction, got lucky and was given (well, basically given) the oil fields in Siberia. But things got tricky as he started to diverge from Putin and move to the left (or is it the right...? Russian politics baffle me). He was more interested in more government transparency and the progressive opposition. In 2003 his company, a main rival of the national gas service, was taken over by the government and he was jailed for tax evasion (probably a trumped-up charge). He's been in jail ever since.
The story is told mostly through television footage, interviews with Khodorkovsky's former colleagues and a series of stylized black-and-white animated segments (for the parts where there is no archival footage). I happen to dislike the look of the animation, it's all a bit too modern and stylistic for no reason. The third act of the film, where Khodorkovsky is in jail and interviewees are discussing his reason for not fleeing the country before he was arrested (which he could have done very easily), is a bit long and dull. I think at 111 minutes, the film is about 20 minutes too long and would have held together better if more was taken out.
There is a wonderful metaphor at the tail of the film of the suburban subdivision for billionaires outside of Moscow, where all of these heads of companies lived next to one another with gates around them and watch towers above safeguarding them - or imprisoning them. Nowadays many of the residents have been arrested for various political reasons, and the houses are largely vacant, aside from the servants who still live in them, keeping food in the fridges is if their bosses could return at any moment. There's a wonderful and evocative existentialist notion... I just think it takes too long to get there.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment