Citizen K

If you look up the documentary Citizen K online, you may find its “stars” listed as Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Putin. That about sums it up: The film traces the rise of Russian oligarch Khodorkovsky and his eventual clash with Putin, which is ongoing.

In 2003, Russian President Putin had Khodorkovsky, the head of Russia’s leading oil company, thrown in jail for 10 years on dubious charges of tax evasion and embezzlement. Khodorkovsky had dared to oppose Putin in his bid for reelection and made a habit of pointing out government corruption, which made him a formidable enemy.

He’s still an enemy — now wanted for the murder of a mayor decades ago — but he was freed from prison and fled to Switzerland in 2013, then to England, where he lives in exile and in fear for his life. He is not, however, afraid to speak his mind, and a rich and revealing series of interviews is the basis for this documentary.

In case you’re wondering, the subject of Russia’s meddling in Western elections never comes up in the film’s two hours, nor does recent U.S. policy toward Putin’s government. There’s simply too much else to cover.

If you’re unclear about how Russia negated the prospect of democracy that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the election of Boris Yeltsin seemed to promise, Citizen K is happy to fill you in. The answer is wrapped up with the rise of the oligarchs — the handful of Russian businessmen, including Khodorkovsky, who took control of most of the nation’s industries and resources in the 1990s. Taking advantage of government chaos, ineptitude and poverty, these few men essentially looted the former Communist state’s most valuable business assets for themselves — which Khodorkovsky cheerfully and candidly explains, making no excuse for his own role.

The director of the documentary is prolific filmmaker Alex Gibney, who has made acclaimed movies about everything from Rolling Stone magazine and Steve Jobs to computer malware and hockey players. His work here is slick and entertaining — beautifully photographed, with jazzy graphics — and the film elucidates its topics with clarity and an abundance of facts without ever getting lost in the weeds. (And there are a lot of weeds here.)

One topic Citizen K can’t quite nail down is the rise of Putin, who essentially comes out of nowhere to become Yeltsin’s despotic successor. But it does delve into the nation’s unflagging affection for the dictator, with plenty of footage and people-on-the-street interviews to illustrate the Russian common man’s starry-eyed support. (These segments will be familiar to anyone who has watched coverage of U.S. politics in the past few years.)

Putin is not interviewed, but he is represented by a generous selection of news footage and sound bites, and a great variety of political figures, businesspeople and journalists weigh in along the way. Citizen K makes no attempt to turn Khodorkovsky into a hero, given his history of greed and excess, but his resilience and frankness are seductive nonetheless.

Now playing at Grail Moviehouse