Mikhail Khodorkovsky was one of the world’s youngest and richest billionaires to emerge from the wealthy Russian oligarchy society, a tycoon owning billions in oil money by the time he was 40. He is now the world’s wealthiest prisoner, freezing in solitude in an obscure secret prison in the frozen depths of Siberia. How did one man’s rise to fortune take such a drastic turn of events? In Cyrill Tuschi’s fascinating and dense political documentary Khodorkovsky, he carefully examines the origin of how one man could ever rise to such power and fortune while historically documenting the birth of capitalist Russia. The film also takes a hard long look at the powerful ex-KGB president Vladimir Putin and how his abuse of power led to Khordorkovsky imprisonment merely because he wanted to support the political opposition. And while Tuschi does a fine job of profiling the enigmatic Khodorkovsky the film is mired with a surplus of information that most likely will be daunting for some audiences unfamiliar with Russian politics and society.
The film at times plays almost like a Michael Moore documentary with Tuschi narrating and often inserting himself into the film. There are scenes of the filmmaker trying to obtain access to the oil fields, prisons and interviewing high profile political figures all to no avail only to highlight the corruption and secrecy surrounding the imprisoned billionaire. Khodorkovsky, who, judging from appearances looks like the Russian Steve Jobs, is in many ways a walking contradiction. An ambitious chemistry student with a personality that people around him recognized as special, transformed into one of the most powerful tycoons not just in Russia but the world. After criticizing his one time ally Putin by trying to highlight corruption in the very entities that brought him immense wealth, Khodorkovsky is wrongfully imprisoned for tax evasion in what seems to be an elaborate power play. Weaving interviews from the people that knew him best and also personal people in the filmmakers life, the film paints a portrait of a country on the edge of evolution.
Despite the wealth of information, as a film the pacing and tone are uneven, caught somewhere between a political thriller and a history lesson.There is also an unfortunate lack of cinematic punch and finesse to give Khodorkovsky a more-focused message and clarity of situation. Interspersed between the interviews are stark 3D black-and-white animations in Waltz with Bashir-style that attempt to thematically and symbolically depict the backstory but again even these seem flat and an attempt to mask the uneven style of the film. Yet at its core Khodorkovsky feels especially relevant given the current political climate of Russia, as Putin is now attempting for a another bid at the title presidency and truly hasn’t left power. Even entities in the Russian government wanted to put a stop to the film’s release in Russia and other places which goes to show there is a value to the substance of the story. Depending on your level of interest in Russian politics will affect how much you enjoy this film because Khodorkovsky is ultimately a document of an unsettling side to the Russian government and society.
Khodorkovsky is now in limited release.