Citizen K (15)****
Dir: Alex Gibney
With: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Putin, Leonid Nevzlin
Runtime: 126 minutes
OSCAR-winning documentary maker Alex Gibney turns his attention to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, king of the Russian oligarchs, the businessmen who made fortunes buying up state assets for knockdown prices, Khodorkovsky and his ilk did extremely well from the collapse of the Soviet Union. As long as the state remained weak their dealings were tolerated. Then along came Vladmir Putin who saw them as thieves who needed to be put in their places. Khodorkovsky made the mistake of pushing back, much to his eventual cost. Gibney has scored a coup in getting the man himself, and he is blessed by such talking heads as Martin Sixsmith, the BBC’s former man in Moscow. The film is a touch long, but this is as much a history of modern Russia as it is a cautionary tale about Putin. As for Khodorkovsky, capitalist turned campaigner for democracy, he is no angel but he is one tough, courageous son of a gun.
GFT and Filmhouse, Edinburgh, until December 24
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here