The story of 21st-century Russia is the story of hope and
idealism squashed by pettiness, greed, and generations of subterranean
criminality. The downfall of the former Soviet Union seemed like an answered
prayer at the time, but apparently the totalitarian impulses of the Russian
government didn't collapse along with communism. The strong-arm forces of the
KGB were replaced by the FSB, an equally close-knit organization accused of
having ties to the mafia. The FSB has proven so committed to suppressing
internal dissent—in spite of its leaders' claims that Russia is more
"open" than ever—that in 2006 it allegedly ordered the assassination of
former-agent-turned-whistleblower Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London
after someone slipped radioactive material into his tea.
Andre Nekrasov's documentary Poisoned By Polonium: The
Litvinenko File
isn't exclusively about Litvinenko. (In fact, the film's original title, Rebellion, probably suits it better.) It's
more about the long run of conflict-resolution-conflict that's dominated
Russian history, and how it led to self-proclaimed reformer Vladimir Putin
leading a regime which warns its people that they'll have to "learn to accept
limitations of free will" in order to maintain stability. But while Nekrasov
has access to an astonishing store of news footage and
interviews—including long sessions with Litvinenko, shot shortly before
he was poisoned—he doesn't organize the material with an eye toward
clarity. He jumps around in the story, and sometimes seems to forget that he's telling a story.
Poisoned By Polonium tries to encompass a thousand tiny details of
Russia's decline into mob rule, when it would've been more effective for
Nekrasov to narrow his focus to Litvinenko, Putin, and one or two average
citizens, in order to show what all this corruption has wrought on people sick
of suffering the same setbacks over and over. Instead, Nekrasov comes off like
a scatterbrained foreign correspondent, reading off his notes to the bureau
chief. The result is a film that does an injustice to the whole chaotic
situation in Eastern Europe by making it seem not just impossible, but impenetrable.