The gripping documentary “Khodor-kovsky’’ tells how Russia’s richest man became its most famous political prisoner.
Since 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of the giant oil company Yukos, has been cooling his heels in a Siberian prison on what civil-rights groups call trumped-up charges of tax evasion and embezzlement. But the real reason the 48-year-old mogul is imprisoned, says the film’s German director, Cyril Tuschi, is because “he picked a fight’’ with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. Tuschi says Putin fears Khodorkovsky aspires to replace him in the Kremlin.
The filmmaker interviews the imprisoned man’s relatives, friends and business associates, and uses stylish black-and-white animation to show scenes he couldn’t capture on camera. They include Khodorkovsky being arrested on his private plane by heavily armed security police.
The political intrigue behind the documentary would make for a great movie of its own. Prints were twice stolen, the second time just days before it was to screen at the Berlin Film Festival. (Luckily, Tuschi had a backup copy.) The film was scheduled to open tomorrow in Moscow theaters, on the eve of elections expected to be won by Putin’s ruling party, until all but one of the movie houses decided otherwise at the last minute.
Call it democracy, Russian style.