Navalny

I personally wouldn’t categorize documentaries as the most thrilling mediums of video. Sure, as hell can be thought provoking, provocative, fascinating, and informational but maybe not hair-raising, rip-roaring, or riveting. Somehow, Daniel Roher does this in his 2022 documentary, Navalny.

            The plot for the most part is simple to follow. At least initially. The documentary follows a Russian opposition leader and former presidential candidate Alexei Navalny during his assassination attempt in 2020 and his later return and arrest in Russia in January 2021. However, it goes must deeper than that. The thing is, there isn’t a way to prove that there was an assassination attempt to begin with. Spoiler alert, the assassination failed.  The documentary then follows a group of data journalists, Christo Grozev and Maria Pevchikh who try to investigate the validity of the assassination claim by obtaining digital data that they link to several men that suggests the involvement of Vladimir Putin. There is a board created with pictures and red yarn and thumbtacks. It felt straight out of a movie.

            It was precisely moments like this that made the documentary feel larger than life but the most shocking was that this was all real footage of a real event. It does kind of blur the lines between documentary and movie. Honestly the biggest criticism I can say I have towards the documentary was that I disliked how at times it seemed to be very in support of Alexei Navalny which is fine, but at some point it tries extremely hard to paint a certain picture and it comes off as too political or too in favor of Navalny which isn’t terrible but it helps emphasize how ultimately this is one singular point of view. The fact that the crew asks him about his past involvement with certain more extremist parties, felt like there was a sense of separation between Alexei and the creators but then there would be included scenes of Alexei speaking to others in a ‘candid’ sense, but the cameras are rolling.

The acting is solid. It is interesting to see someone who is used to the camera i.e., through his YouTube channel talk to a camera where he has less control essentially. The format also highlighted the presence of an alter ego, character or mask Alexei presents to the public. The music throughout fits the documentary well. Marius de Vries produced and composed music for the documentary and there were a lot of moments during clips of protests and Navalny’s supporters that felt very Orwellian? Or maybe Hunger Games-esque which sounds strange, but they were moments of hope that flickered. Like the music was moving. To add on to that, the music that played during suspenseful scenes made the emotion more dire and kept audiences at the edge of their seat. The inclusion and emphasis on Navalny’s daughter, Daria Navalnaya made the entire ordeal more sympathetic towards Navalny. She adds a unique perspective because she is a university student, so she is old enough to understand a lot of the politics behind her father’s profession but also, she goes to another country for university so there is a distance between Daria and her family. That really resonated.

The editing is another major win for the documentary. The way the initial story is broken down or in other words the visual narrative in the beginning provides a general synopsis to what happened, but the documentary backtracks to narrow down on the events leading to the poisoning in a chronological way that reels audiences in. I watched this documentary with my housemate and was genuinely surprised to see how wrapped up she was in the drama and thrill of it. Like they emphasized in the movie, it feels like it was pulled straight out of a movie but that isn’t the case. As crazy as the fine details sound, the journalists involved were able to use their data to track down suspects involved in the possible assassination attempt. After contacting Alexei Navalny, all the parties involved decide to contact and record the conversations with all the potential suspects in hopes of coaxing a confession out of someone. By this point the pursuit for the truth has reeled the audience in and the truth will be a shock to some. Interestingly enough, when the truth is finally revealed, that isn’t the definite climax of the documentary. With the new information that’s been gathered the documentary also focuses on the events that transpired after Navalny recovers and what leads up to his return to Russia. It includes a lot of archival news clips, and although brief, it helps contextualize a lot of the background of events with initial headlines from a couple of years ago.

The overall documentary is an encapsulating watch. It certainly feels like the plot was ripped out of a Hollywood script. On a more serious note, this helps contextualize a lot of current relations within Russia and gives an insight to some more internal matters that American audiences may not all be aware of. At times the world feels a lot more Westernized to Americans and this documentary helps grasp a better understanding and gives people a look into another (more open) Russian politician. If the intent is for the audience to feel more favorable towards Alexei Navalny, then it did a good job doing so.