While my political perspective is much different from Laura Poitras, the director, I was able to appreciate "Citizenfour" and could see why it received such acclaim.Not so with this one. Just a sloppy, haphazard effort. Supposedly this was filmed over a 6 year period, but it would have been nice if there were some markers along the way telling us which year that which things were happening. If it's difficult to judge the years now, imagine 10- 20 years from now, when this is less of a "hot topic" issue.Although Poitras is clearly on the side of what Wikileaks does, she still makes Assange come off as a real sexist jerk. And his #1 assistant, Sarah Harrison, comes off as a Stepford Wife that has apparently drunk gallons and gallons of Kool-Aid. Obviously, it is hard to ignore the politics of a film like this when reviewing it. If you agree with the politics, you'll probably be more supportive of this film. If you don't agree with what Wikileaks is doing, you'll view Assange and company as smug, self-important hypocrites. After I saw the film, I was reading up about how this film was re-cut after being shown at Cannes, where Poitras had a change of heart on how she had previously shown Assange, and decided to now show his more sexist side. Similar to the change in perspective of Jacob Applebaum, whom Poitras was apparently sleeping with during a portion of this six year period, and then he was later accused of sexual misconduct. A film about all of that would probably have been a more interesting story than what we saw in the film.

The reviews for this documentary are all over the place. Reviewers who are firm advocates of WikiLeaks tend to over-exaggerate the film's virtues, while those who find the organization's actions reprehensible tend to hate it. I watched the film as an objective reviewer.Some have called the film a sleeper and there are parts of the film that live up to that branding. These occur mainly at the beginning of the film when scenes shift quickly and conversations are somewhat baffling and vapid.Assange emerges as an emotionally remote character who hides his true personality behind his dedication to WikiLeaks. He even states that what he does is more important than who he is. The only scene in which we get a glimpse into his repressed character is when he is interviewed by Lady Gaga, dressed in her Wicked-Witch-of-the West costume. Ms. Gaga, like most celebrities, tries to hide her insecurity behind false bravado and seemingly unfiltered, carefree questions which tell us more about her than Assange. In a clear case of projection, she asks about his relationship to his parents, wherein Assange claimed his father was "abstract".We do get some glimpses into the life Assange lives within the Ecuadorean Embassy. We learn about his relationships with his team and find out a few ways that the organization keeps itself protected from government intrusion. This may hold some interest for some viewers.The latter half of the film is more interesting, especially when he talks about the DNC hacking. I only wish this were expanded more as it is more timely. It is at this point in the film that Assange talks about the earth as so interconnected that any action must be considered a global action. It is an interesting an important viewpoint that should be considered. It is not simply "think globally, act locally". It is more that even a small local action may have global implications.The film leaves many questions unanswered and, as a whole, doesn't flow very well. It could have been better made. There is nothing compelling in it, meaning that a viewer may be tempted to stop watching the film entirely at certain points. There is no hook that makes us want to see how it ends. There are no compelling relationships and some issues seem unresolved that could easily have been. Still, a few scenes are definitely worth seeing.For those interested in the world of cyber security, political intrigue, and government surveillance, this documentary may be of interest. For the general public, however, it may simply be too dull.

"Risk" is interesting as a work of art, because Laura Poitras has a cinematic style that uses the suggestive power of images and sounds. The eerie avant garde music by newcomer Jeremy Flower dominates the soundtrack like in a thriller. It's a documentary that tries to be 'exciting' and 'complex', which is good for every work of art. But "Risk" wants to be journalism, too. It's about real people with real problems. It's more than entertainment. My biggest problem with the film is, that it simply doesn't deliver here, which is sad, because Laura Poitras had a unique access and probably has 200 hours of footage at home.The WikiLeaks lawyers wrote a long complaint about this film and they are right, I think.REPRESENTING WIKILEAKS LIKE A CULTWhy do we never see an interview with Sarah Harrison or the other women at the center of WikiLeaks ? What about Gavin MacFadyen, Vaughan Smith or other key people?By marginalizing the WikiLeaks women, and excluding all the other contributors, Poitras creates the impression, that Julian Assange is as dominant as a cult leader. The gender relations are characterized - in a non-verbal way - as unequal and the women as nearly submissive, always working like bees to 'please' their sinister 'master' Julian. The portrait that Laura Poitras paints of WikiLeaks follows the old stereotype, that it's an ideological sect dominated by one power-hungry man, who knows no limits.I'm sure, that the women, staff & contributors would have told a very different story of why they do what they do, but Laura Poitras only asks Assange a few questions - and nobody else. This is highly manipulative.CREATING AMBIGUITY INSTEAD OF REPORTING NECESSARY FACTSWhy did Laura Poitras remove the whole section of WikiLeaks' triumph at the United Nations, where top Human Rights lawyers decided that Assange's treatment was unlawful? By not showing this surprising victory - Sweden dropped the whole investigation now - Julian Assange appears much more ambiguous. Poitras clearly wants to create as much ambiguity concerning WikiLeaks as possible, which is O.K. for art, but not for journalism.It's the same with Jacob Appelbaum, who comes across like a 'guilty' person, even if the facts don't really support the view of Laura Poitras: While it's true, that there were allegations against him, most of them have been refuted by journalists and no official complaints exist. But Poitras still included them, because she has personal reasons: In the V.O. she says that Appelbaum "was abusive to someone close to me", which seems to be some kind of 'proof' for her. But we don't get a name or any information what kind of "abuse" Appelbaum committed, only the vague impression that he's a bad, bad guy. What did he do? Did he kick Laura's dog? Or did he tease her cat? Sorry, but that's not journalism or responsible filmmaking, because neither Mr. Appelbaum nor the audience can verify or refute an empty statement like that. It's simply a manipulation of the audience.LAURA KNOWS WHAT?Laura Poitras asks the audience to always trust her, because 'Laura knows', but this is childish.Why should we trust Laura Poitras to always tell the truth - if she even has access to it - when she sometimes doesn't even get small facts correct and manipulates reality for her storytelling like it pleases her?A beautiful example for the problem of manipulation-by-editing is a short sequence in a Berlin S-Bahn near the end, where we see Sarah Harrison. Everybody who knows Berlin can see, that the editing creates an impossible continuity: First we see the station 'Hackescher Markt', then we hear a voice announcing the station 'Berlin Hauptbahnhof' and at last we see her driving by the station 'Alexanderplatz'. The editing creates a nonsensical and physically impossible trip in this sequence, but only people who know Berlin will even see this.If Laura Poitras doesn't care about these details - that she obviously knew were wrong, since she lived in Berlin - then how much did she care about accuracy in other parts of her movie, where she asks us to simply 'trust' her ?Poitras also mentions in one sentence - like it doesn't matter - that Appelbaum used to be her boyfriend in 2014. That's all the info we get, despite the big credibility problems this creates for an observational documentary. To have sex with your subjects while you pretend to create an objective 'journalistic film' is ridiculous. Does Appelbaum come across as 'guilty' in her film, because Ms. Poitras wanted to take revenge on Appelbaum, who left her for a younger woman?THE MORAL OF THE STORYThe life of Jacob Appelbaum is more or less destroyed after this film, but Laura Poitras and her distributor try now very hard to win another Academy Award for this 'achievement' - this is obscene.She needs to simply present more credible evidence before she represents people as bad guys in her 'thrillers', otherwise it becomes unethical and morally troubling filmmaking.It certainly didn't made me appreciate Laura Poitras as a journalist, because she does care more for her art & drama than accurate & balanced journalism.VISUAL JOURNALISM HAS NOT THE SAME LIBERTIES AS ARTI'm all for trying new ways of reporting on real-life stories: Laura Poitras' "Field of Vision" project wanted to explore 'visual journalism' and it sounded exciting to me.But "Risk" is regressive in it's ignorant approach and does a disservice to the credibility of her 'visual journalism' project and the documentary form itself.More visual reporting and data visualization in journalism is good, but it has to be accurate, balanced, fair and based on legit methods & credible sources otherwise it becomes a work of art & fiction, that can't claim any journalistic value.Poitras' "Risk" definitely crossed the line.

I watched the newest cut of Risk as of 5/7/17 with the director in attendance.I went into Risk blind, as in, I had no prior knowledge of the film prior to seeing it. I was already a big fan personally Poitras' previous Oscar-winning documentary CITEZENFOUR, so I was expecting to get something similar in that sense, but what I got was something even more provocative. The viewer throughout the film is creating this image of Assange as more and more things come into light. At the same time, we get an in-depth look into the inner operations and daily struggle of one of the most famous/infamous, depending who you're asking, online warehouse of classified documents, WikiLeaks. This clash of truth, privacy, and freedom is experienced as the governments of the world begin question each others practices while also witnessing the personal struggle and persecution of the whistle-blowing community. All that, as told through the perspective of a documentary film-maker who puts so much at risk personally to capture the truth of everything that happens in this community that I personally have no extensive knowledge on. About Assange, the viewer is really left to observe this candid portrayal of the man behind the whole operation. A portrayal that even the subject doesn't agree with. That, along with the fact that we are living immediate consequences of the the events portrayed in the film, is what makes it so raw and so relevant to what we're living through right now.