The Power of Conscience in ‘Citizenfour’ (in Culture)

Edward Snowden doc reveals struggle in acting alone. Is it a lesson for Burnaby Mountain?

A prodding, insistent conscience set Edward Snowden in motion. The same goes for protesters opposing Kinder Morgan's pipeline expansion.

I have been waiting a long time to see Citizenfour. It was worth the wait.

Director Laura Poitras's film about Edward Snowden had its premiere at the New York Film Festival on Oct. 10, 2014. It entered theatres not long after. I went to see it on the same day as a fundraiser for the Burnaby Mountain protesters opposing Kinder Morgan's expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. It turned out the two things had something in common.

Action undertaken in secret by government is the motivating factor that drives Edward Snowden to sacrifice his life as an ordinary person. It was an issue that came up again and again at the Burnaby Mountain event, as speaker after speaker talked about secret meetings, nondisclosure agreements and backroom deals between the Canadian government and large multinational corporations. Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan called it ''the invisible hand of the marketplace.'' That secret hand has become a little easier to spot, thanks in large part to the courage and defiance of ordinary people who feel it at the back of their shirt collars, frog-marching them to jail, or giving them a hard shove away from some invisible line in the dirt.

In the staid confines of the Law Courts Building in Vancouver, a crowd of all ages sang, spoke and read poems in support of the protest. It is easy to be brave when you are all together; it's much harder when you're alone. This became readily apparent as SFU professor Stephen Collis recalled keeping watch on Burnaby Mountain in the dark and the rain -- not knowing whether Kinder Morgan would show up, or what to do if they did. The pipeline protests have become much more lively since then. But change still requires those first steps: people acting almost entirely alone, with only the insistent prodding of their conscience.

The profoundly personal cost of taking action is rendered explicit in the story of Edward Snowden. Snowden's actions set into motion one of the biggest stories in recent history, but it started with one person, deciding to do the right thing, all by himself.

Meet America's most wanted

In many respects, Citizenfour is a simple film -- a three-act story that unfolds in what occasionally feels like real time. Director Poitras places it within the context of a trilogy of films about post-911 America. If you have not seen her earlier works, My Country, My Country and The Oath, I would urge you to seek them out. My Country, My Country is about the United States' role in the Iraqi elections, which secured Ms. Poitras a position on the highest threat rating of the Department of Homeland Securities' watch list. Her subsequent work, The Oath, centered around Abu Jandal, a taxi driver who worked as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

Citizenfour takes place a little closer to home.

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The Power of Conscience in 'Citizenfour' (in Culture)