THE DISSIDENT | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Bryan Fogel (12A, 119 mins)
The shocking death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul’s Saudi embassy is brought to rigorous light in this documentary – from the director of Icarus, which detailed the Russian doping scandal in Olympic athletics. Khashoggi had been attempting to process paperwork for his impending marriage to Turkish girlfriend Hatice Cengiz at the embassy, when he was attacked and murdered in an orchestrated hit that seemed to have been approved by the very highest authority in Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
Khashoggi, an ebullient 60-year-old, had been walking a tightrope between his Saudi homeland and his adopted home in the west for years. An initial insider in the Saudi regime, he grew more and more critical of its practices, calling out its attacks on freedom of expression under new leader Bin Salman. This led to him having to leave his homeland, wife and children to lead a second life, writing for the Western press and finding a new love in the shape of Cengiz.
The film painstakingly and alarmingly details the death of Khashoggi as he disappears into the embassy never to be seen again – even playing the recording of his murder given to Turkish police. His body was subsequently dismembered in the embassy and taken out in bags, this too fully documented. It’s a disturbing, hideous crime that illustrates the power and reach of the Saudi top brass, and more worryingly still, Fogel illustrates that they now have the best cyberhacking teams in the world. Notably, they managed to tap into outgoing Amazon head Jeff Bezos’ phone to put pressure on him to secure deals, targeting supporters of Khashoggi’s call for freedom of expression in the oil-rich country and making them fear for their lives.
Fogel follows one dissident, Omar Abdulaziz – now living in Montreal as he tries to co-ordinate protests against his country, and to whom Khashoggi had been a mentor. The Dissident highlights the nefarious political realities of the power-hungry with alarming and chilling precision, painting a picture of Khashoggi as a decent man trying to make a difference whose tragic end horrifies and alarms. His murderers may not have been brought to justice, but Khashoggi’s courage lives on.
Released on Fri 5 Mar
words KEIRON SELF