2020 Directed by Bryan Fogel
When Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappears after entering Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, his fiancée and dissidents around the world are left to piece together the clues to a brutal murder and expose a global cover up perpetrated by the very country he loved.
持不同政见者, 持不同意见者, El disidente
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Filmmaker Bryan Fogel has truly outdone himself with THE DISSIDENT - a shocking & revealing piece of investigative journalism into the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Edited & presented like a thriller with a terrific score, this is easily a huge Oscar contender for Best Documentary Feature.
Bryan Fogel's Icarus is one of the best documentaries of the century thus far; this is one of the most ordinary. The topic isn't uninteresting. Far from it. It couldn't be more fascinating. However, this documentary suffers from taking on a story already oversaturated with media coverage, and adding little to it.
Providing slight contextual padding around the gruesome assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, The Dissident simply fills to much space up with fluff. Yes, Khashoggi was obviously murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Yes, the assassination was clearly the consequence of direct orders that came down through the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (MBS) himself. Yes, Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly an autocratic oligarchy that…
Can we please stop trying to "visualize" digital technology in documentaries for dramatic effect? This isn't the 1995 Angelina Jolie vehicle Hackers, I can understand the idea of Saudi government hacking Jeff Bezos' phone without having to watch a PS2 graphic-rendered phone become an iTunes music visualizer.
can’t believe I coincidentally started watching this an hour after Jamal’s death was confirmed to have been ordered by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. absolutely ridiculous how that worked out. shame that the documentary shoots such vital subjects and information like it’s flashy true crime. just because there’s good information in a documentary doesn’t make up for presentation, particularly when the filmmaking is as hollow and sensationalistic as this. got especially grumpy when it started using Blackhat style hacking interludes and tense music in a documentary about how a man got murdered in an embassy. I think documentarians have a responsibility to depict their information and their arguments in a way that prioritises the humanity and the system’s lies and exploitations, instead of trying to make it like a Hollywood thriller.
Directed and produced by American filmmaker Bryan Fogel, who won an Academy Award for his groundbreaking documentary Icarus, about athletic performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports, The Dissident is a tale of corruption at the highest levels and a flagrant disregard for human life.
Fogel delivers incriminating details about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's participation in the planned murder, on 2 October 2018, of Jamal Khashoggi, a distinguished Washington Post correspondent and an outspoken detractor of the Saudi Arabian government. There's detailed testimony and analysis from the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, on the Turkish data on Khashoggi's murder to assist in outlining how the story has genuinely far-reaching global consequences.
Much of the documentary is narrated by the former…
Bryan Fogel's follow up to Icarus is a sprawling reduction of its subject with enough drone footage and shiny Twitter animations to make sure you don't forget it was made at some point in the last three years. Investigative Journalism at it's best boils down essential pieces of data as well as general facts and research then presents them all coherently in a digestible way. Unfortunately this documentary about an investigative journalist is a far cry from that standard. Like a microwave meal it is more manufactured than created, and once you're done with it you feel worse than when you started. Not because it was impactful, but because it was vapid.
The Dissedent presents us with a lot of…
Pausing my down-bad week with a down-bad story. The Dissident is the true story about Saudia Arabia's assassination on Jamal Kashoggi. The documentary goes through the entire account of Khasoggi's career as a journalist. All the way up to the disappearence. This is obviously some scary stuff. It goes to show you how people are incredibly blessed to live in a country where free speech doesnt get you assassinated.
Unfortunately, the U.S is having another resurgence of what really is "free speech"? That is a question people have to answer themselves as they watch this documentary. Overall, I really enjoyed this. I don't know if this can be apart of the awards season talk, but it should be. This is an extremely important documentary.
☆"That's the definition of a state operation."☆
Film Independent advance screener.
I'm not sure there are too many individuals who deserve two different documentaries released the same year about them, but perhaps Jamal Khashoggi is worthy of such a distinction. Those films are Rick Rowley's under-the-radar Kingdom of Silence and Bryan Fogel's universally acclaimed The Dissident.
Maybe it's no surprise to see another eye-opening thriller from Fogel, winner of an Academy Award for 2017's doping exposé of Icarus. This talented director is back with another suspenseful story, full of new revelations and deep investigation, of the murder of the Saudi journalist by the government of the country from which he escaped.
(Again, it bears repeating that Fogel has also directed…
Wasn't huge on the style used here which felt more appropriate for the subject matter of Icarus than the topic matter here. But as is usually the case with documentaries, if the subject matter is important and compelling enough I'm already halfway there, and this certainly is a very important and compelling topic. Still, a less showy and more measured approach to the documentary format would've been appreciated here.
