Reviewed by Janina Conboye
Featuring Boris Berezovsky, André Glucksmann, Marina Litvinenko,
Andrei Lugovoi, Anna Politkovskaya, Vladimir Putin | Written by Andrei Nekrasov & Olga Konskaya
UK certification Exempt | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 105 minutes | Directed by Andrei Nekrasov
In 2006, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with Polonium 210 in London. The Russian government denied they were behind his murder. On 8 July 2008 the BBC released news that it had been told by Whitehall officials that the death of Alexander Litvinenko was carried out with the backing of the Russian state. A senior security official told Newsnight there were "very strong indications it was a state action".
UK investigators suspect former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi of the murder, but he has always denied any involvement. Gordon Brown continues to lobby for the extradition of Lugovoi, so he can face trial here in the UK, but Russia refuses. This news coincides quite aptly coincides with the release of the documentary Rebellion: The Litvinenko case, in which Andrei Nekrasov examines the details behind Litvinenko’s decision to speak out against his Motherland and why the Kremlin are likely to want him dead. The exiled former KGB agent was a fierce critic of former Russian president Vladimir Putin and was seen as an enemy by the Russian state as he spoke out against government corruption and what had become a police state.
Nekrasov tells the story of Litvinenko – known as Sasha to his friends - from his initial rebellion against corruption in his agency, through his imprisonment and escape from Russia, to his crusade against his former employers to his eventual assassination. There are a series of revealing interviews with the main protagonists of the case, including his friends, his alleged killers, his widow and Sasha himself. Nekrasov’s narrative is interrupted by flashbacks into history that explain how hopes for freedom and democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union have been almost ruined by the war in Chechnya and the consolidation of power by president Putin. The film recreates a world of intrigue, high-stake politics, loyalty and betrayal. It is intricate and reveals secrets of the Kremlin you’d probably expect in a Bond film. It’s an interesting and unnerving take on modern Russia after the fall of communism and you can’t help but feel a sense of foreboding that something darker is waiting to come to the surface.
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