Oliver Stone is a good filmmaker. I wish I could say I enjoyed these interviews, but I mostly did not.
What I liked is that Oliver Stone understands subtlety and tries to have a cohesive and meaningful dialog above the black and white views and opinions, so heavily polarized in the media today. He's trying to understand the current state of the world as a multitude of multifaceted and complex issues that can't be addressed with just simple answers and demagogy. I respect that.
What I really disliked is the fact that talking with Putin about these issues felt like talking with a robot, programmed to deliver the same answers with different words each time. Oliver Stone's questions, however pertinent they were, their answers always fell short, dissimulated, meaningless and mostly boring. His courtesy, joviality, towards Putin, made me a bit uncomfortable and I had to ask myself several times "Does he know with who is he speaking?". I mean, it is pretty clear by now that Putin sure as heck isn't an angel, with many people arguing that he's exactly the opposite with other worrisome adjectives added to his title. Yes, I can understand that he needed to be polite, otherwise he would probably never finish the documentary, but honestly, sometimes it felt like a bromance between the two.
Digging a bit deeper in the analysis of the film, I felt it had several missed opportunities to convey a counterpoint or a different narrative using the most important toolkit a director can have, the visual language. Oliver Stone opted for some oblique footage (which are part of his visual style) used infrequently and some horrific footage of executions and other war related events, that apart for their shocking value, bring nothing else to the main story. There are some low angle shots that try to capture some body language from Putin, but I don't think they work very well in this context. I feel bad for criticizing such a great filmmaker, but I really think that there was more potential to create a more compelling story on the screen. One directorial device that I think would have worked better would have been to use the language barrier between the interviewer and the interviewee and rely more on the translator and give him a more important part to play in the dialogue and then emphasize the subtle changes between the translator and the subtitles, creating a small psychological dissonance for the viewer, which in turn would convey the complexity and ambiguous nature of Putin. I think the best example here would have been the director Claude Lanzmann, which heavily relies on spoken language as an integral part of his documentaries, especially considering that his films are also centered on very difficult and unpleasant subjects.
Even though I admire Oliver Stone and I understand and respect the importance of what he's trying to do and also the difficulty of such a task, I believe that this film only hit some minor goals, but overall, missed what I consider to be the main mark, which is a genuine attempt at a characterization of Putin, with all the good and the bad that entails. However, dealing with such complex issues, I do recommend that this film should be seen, because these issues will sooner or later affect all of us and there can't possibly be just one right answer, or just one objective conclusion.
I think that this film is a solid 7, but not much above that.
What I liked is that Oliver Stone understands subtlety and tries to have a cohesive and meaningful dialog above the black and white views and opinions, so heavily polarized in the media today. He's trying to understand the current state of the world as a multitude of multifaceted and complex issues that can't be addressed with just simple answers and demagogy. I respect that.
What I really disliked is the fact that talking with Putin about these issues felt like talking with a robot, programmed to deliver the same answers with different words each time. Oliver Stone's questions, however pertinent they were, their answers always fell short, dissimulated, meaningless and mostly boring. His courtesy, joviality, towards Putin, made me a bit uncomfortable and I had to ask myself several times "Does he know with who is he speaking?". I mean, it is pretty clear by now that Putin sure as heck isn't an angel, with many people arguing that he's exactly the opposite with other worrisome adjectives added to his title. Yes, I can understand that he needed to be polite, otherwise he would probably never finish the documentary, but honestly, sometimes it felt like a bromance between the two.
Digging a bit deeper in the analysis of the film, I felt it had several missed opportunities to convey a counterpoint or a different narrative using the most important toolkit a director can have, the visual language. Oliver Stone opted for some oblique footage (which are part of his visual style) used infrequently and some horrific footage of executions and other war related events, that apart for their shocking value, bring nothing else to the main story. There are some low angle shots that try to capture some body language from Putin, but I don't think they work very well in this context. I feel bad for criticizing such a great filmmaker, but I really think that there was more potential to create a more compelling story on the screen. One directorial device that I think would have worked better would have been to use the language barrier between the interviewer and the interviewee and rely more on the translator and give him a more important part to play in the dialogue and then emphasize the subtle changes between the translator and the subtitles, creating a small psychological dissonance for the viewer, which in turn would convey the complexity and ambiguous nature of Putin. I think the best example here would have been the director Claude Lanzmann, which heavily relies on spoken language as an integral part of his documentaries, especially considering that his films are also centered on very difficult and unpleasant subjects.
Even though I admire Oliver Stone and I understand and respect the importance of what he's trying to do and also the difficulty of such a task, I believe that this film only hit some minor goals, but overall, missed what I consider to be the main mark, which is a genuine attempt at a characterization of Putin, with all the good and the bad that entails. However, dealing with such complex issues, I do recommend that this film should be seen, because these issues will sooner or later affect all of us and there can't possibly be just one right answer, or just one objective conclusion.
I think that this film is a solid 7, but not much above that.