Posted on Apr 21, 2022
'Navalny' documentary spotlights the Russian who dared to take on Putin
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https://www.npr.org/2022/04/21/ [login to see] /navalny-documentary-putin-russia-review
In his valuable new book, The Age of the Strongman, Gideon Rachman argues that our world is dominated by populist leaders who are destroying democracy, in part by making a cult of their own leadership. He devotes his first chapter to the strongman he calls "the archetype": Vladimir Putin, the Russian president/dictator whose true nature is currently on display in Ukraine.
In his valuable new book, The Age of the Strongman, Gideon Rachman argues that our world is dominated by populist leaders who are destroying democracy, in part by making a cult of their own leadership. He devotes his first chapter to the strongman he calls "the archetype": Vladimir Putin, the Russian president/dictator whose true nature is currently on display in Ukraine.
'Navalny' documentary spotlights the Russian who dared to take on Putin
Posted from npr.org
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Documentaries
Russia
Democracy
Vladimir Putin
Posted 2 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel one interesting read/share, I tell you you have to be careful with words now a day, Putin is a dangerous man.
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Of course, Putin isn't shy about attacking his own citizens either. Among his top targets is Alexei Navalny, the charismatic, media-savvy dissident who's been so forceful in calling out the Kremlin's lies and corruption that Putin literally won't say his name.
Navalny, currently in prison, is the subject of a new documentary by Daniel Roher that, while sometimes heavy-handed, is never less than compelling. Made before the invasion of Ukraine, and titled simply Navalny, it offers intimate, sometimes amazing access to the bravery, and human cost, of opposing a despot.
Rather than offer a head-on summary of Navalny's career, the film centers on its most dramatic episode. In August 2020, Navalny is flying from Siberia back to Moscow — we see footage from the plane — when he suddenly becomes deathly ill.
The flight is diverted to Omsk, where he's taken to a hospital whose doctors are weirdly reluctant to let his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, see him. Fearing a murder attempt, she and his colleagues fight to get him flown to a hospital in Germany. There it's established that he'd been given a dose of Novichok, a deadly nerve gas known as Putin's signature poison.
Once he starts to recover, Navalny and his team try to figure out who had tried to kill him. They hook up with the investigative journalist Christo Grozev from the website Bellingcat, whom Navalny calls a "nice, very kind Bulgarian nerd with a laptop." Hacking into flight manifests and so forth, Grozev narrows down the possible killers, some of whom have been shadowing Navalny since 2017. In the film's most breathtaking moment — which I won't spoil — they get the smoking gun with the Kremlin's fingerprints on it."...
..."Of course, Putin isn't shy about attacking his own citizens either. Among his top targets is Alexei Navalny, the charismatic, media-savvy dissident who's been so forceful in calling out the Kremlin's lies and corruption that Putin literally won't say his name.
Navalny, currently in prison, is the subject of a new documentary by Daniel Roher that, while sometimes heavy-handed, is never less than compelling. Made before the invasion of Ukraine, and titled simply Navalny, it offers intimate, sometimes amazing access to the bravery, and human cost, of opposing a despot.
Rather than offer a head-on summary of Navalny's career, the film centers on its most dramatic episode. In August 2020, Navalny is flying from Siberia back to Moscow — we see footage from the plane — when he suddenly becomes deathly ill.
The flight is diverted to Omsk, where he's taken to a hospital whose doctors are weirdly reluctant to let his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, see him. Fearing a murder attempt, she and his colleagues fight to get him flown to a hospital in Germany. There it's established that he'd been given a dose of Novichok, a deadly nerve gas known as Putin's signature poison.
Once he starts to recover, Navalny and his team try to figure out who had tried to kill him. They hook up with the investigative journalist Christo Grozev from the website Bellingcat, whom Navalny calls a "nice, very kind Bulgarian nerd with a laptop." Hacking into flight manifests and so forth, Grozev narrows down the possible killers, some of whom have been shadowing Navalny since 2017. In the film's most breathtaking moment — which I won't spoil — they get the smoking gun with the Kremlin's fingerprints on it."...
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