"Navalny", a topnotch political documentary for our times

In September 2022, I reviewed Navalny for the Social Impact Media Award annual competition. It received the prize for best editing a few weeks ago. On March 12, 2023, it won a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Documentary.  I went back to my notes, and below is the brief assessment I wrote about this excellent political documentary.

Navalny (2022)   Dir. Daniel Roher    USA     99 min

  
Like the Academy award winners Icarus (2017) and Free Solo (2018), the riveting Navalny is an observational documentary, constructed as an open-ended thriller, unfolding in real time. Less a portrait of the charismatic imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny than the fallout of his poisoning by Putin secret agents in August 2020, the documentary is a griping spy movie. 

Shot during three months, making ample use of television materials, Navalny is anchored by an interview with the protagonist, before his return to Russia in January 2021. Framing the beginning and the end of the film, this interview lays out the key difference between the YouTube videos posted by Navalny, a savvy user of social media, and the superior impact of political documentary.  We can see behind Navalny’s piercing blue eyes, his calculations about allowing a participant observer in his inner circle.  

The pièce de resistance, around which the film has been skillfully edited, is the phone conversation between Navalny and one of the Russian agents, coaxed into describing the poisoning. It also brings in a variety of perspectives, shot with multiple cameras, as the flight back to Moscow is filmed in real time. 

The production team astutely pitched the project to CNN Films and HBO Max, and Navalny stands now as a topnotch example of a political documentary that keeps the viewers glued to the screen, never losing sight of the larger issues.