Citizen Four is the codename Edward Snowden was using to sign the first set of emails he sent to Laura Poitras, and it’s also the title Poitras has chosen for the movie she has been producing about their encounter. The central piece of the documentary is a week-long interview with Glen Greenwald in a hotel room in Hong-Kong.
Throughout his interview, Snowden is determined and calm, very well-spoken, clear-minded and level-headed. He knows the topic he’s talking about inside and out and is keen on fully answering the questions asked by Greenwald and going forward with the publishing of the documents he took from the NSA.
He is conscious that the spin doctors in DC are going to try to target him personally, and explains this is why he wants to remove his own bias by using the press as a proxy – from what is shown in the movie, it’s a working relationship. He doesn’t talk much about himself, not because he has something to hide but because he feels it would be a distraction to the people, something the government could exploit.
The aesthetic of the film is that of a quiet, international espionage thriller where a lot is playing out behind the scenes. Did he just walk out of the hotel and into a cab at the time his face was on every screen in the world? Where was he hosted after that? The whole episode of the Moscow airport, including how specifically WikiLeaks provided assistance, remains shrouded in mystery.
On a couple of occasions, the documentary deliberately goes for the comical effect. Snowden not only mentions the ways in which intelligence agencies are spying, he lives by them. In front of two incredulous journalists, he is seen covering his head and laptop under a blanket before typing a password. Later in the film, lawyers representing him not only turn off their phones, but the phones are taken out of the room before the meeting can begin.
Snowden’s background, that of a kid raised in military family, only reinforces the sentiment that he’s genuinely chose to join the NSA and then to out its practices to not just make rent or for fame, but because he genuinely believes that the government is acting against the interest of the people.
The only moment of perceivable weakness is when Snowden is shown chatting with his girlfriend, who he had left entirely in the dark as to his intentions. Well over a year after the first NSA documents were first published in the Guardian, this movie is less about the repeated lies of the US government and the intelligence community and presents the flip of the coin. It isn’t a portrait of Edward Snowden, but it’s the most personal it’s going to get.