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Not Gay But interesting: Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File |
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Monday, 24 March 2008 |
Impressions
Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File
Looking for a Gay themed movie at the Quad cinema I was again disappointed about the de-gaying of the Quad’s offerings. Seeing nothing of interest by gay film makers, I was intrigued by the completely non-gay film by Andrei Nekrasov called Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File. The documentary film has a gritty quality complete with hidden camera images of meetings of the FEB, the successor to the infamous KGB where assassinations are planned. The documentary follows Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko, a defector from the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) who implicates the secret police agency with starting the Chechnian War with bombing of civilian Russian targets, conducting a campaign of assassinations of the government’s opponents and whose assassination unit eventually rebelled at the crimes it was being ordered to commit. The film documents Putin’s association with the KGB and FSB.
Litvinenko was eventually poisoned while in exile in England with the rare radioisotope Polonium. While the film’s narration has been translated and the rest has been subtitled, the film doesn’t clearly and consistently identify the characters. Chirons which would remind western audiences the identity of the players are minimally used. While it is a bit slow paced, the information revealed is quite interesting. The perspective is that of Litvinenko who is completely alienated from the regime who has a viewpoint similar to a liberal capitalist also in exile shown in the film. There seems to be a close connection between the film maker and the liberal capitalist who was a former Putin ally that had a falling out with Putin.
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