The Dissident: Film Review

Director: Bryan Fogel

Icarus Director Bryan Fogel manages to fuse together both a slick thriller and terrifying commentary on Saudi Arabia in this latest documentary, that aims to make you enraged and galvanised into action.

For those who've never heard of Jamal Khashoggi and his murder, Fogel makes it eminently clear from the beginning that this is an horrific killing and make no mistake of it.

Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi embassy on Turkish soil in October 2018 as his fiancee waited outside for him to return with the paperwork they needed to become married. For days those inside the embassy protested the Washington Post journalist was not there.

But the awful truth emerged....

It's this which Fogel's documentary concentrates on - well, once he's delivered a slick and polished opening that feels like the start of a Netflix true crime series, involving a former Saudi dissident, talk of bees and flies invading the internet, and half-disguised worn bon mots that "Jamal's death changed everything."

There's little new in The Dissident that those studying the outrageous death and horrific abuse of state-sanctioned violence would not already know. But what emerges from this vaguely polemic film, complete with its cutting back and forth from the fateful events of that day to the dead-eyed investigators whose casual revelations of the horrific nature of Khashoggi's death do little except to seed nightmares, is a film of a man who was human, displaced from his homeland and lost in the rhetoric of his desire to see his country in a better place.

At one point, Khashoggi is described as "an insider who was now very much an outsider."

When Fogel lays off the heavy-handed rhetoric and the feeling that occasionally one man's murder is being manipulated for entertainment purposes as the pieces are pulled back and forth, there is a slice of humanity in this film that's hard to deny, and a rising sense of disgust and anger at what happened. 

There's no denying that The Dissident is gripping, in a sickening way - but there's also a feeling that Fogel is pursuing his own agenda, even if Omar Abdulaziz, a Youtube megastar and radical Saudi Arabian dissident is the human face of the guilt for the attack. As he prowls the night, warned by text to leave Canada where has asylum, Fogel makes clear the tentacles of Saudi Arabia and its King Mohammed Bin Salman can't be escaped and it's a sickening feeling.

But Fogel makes no attempt to counterbalance his argument and accept other viewpoints - or even seek them. Granted, he's in an untenable position against a wall of denial, yet no counterpoint is sought. He makes a compelling case against the Saudis but never damns the allies who refuse to get involved when money and oil are such issues preventing them from doing so - there's little condemnation for other nations who've held back. Though, admittedly, this is not the focus of Fogel's agenda.

Damning and dramatic soundbites pepper proceedings, leaving viewers with their jaws on the floor, and almost forgetting that a 60 year old man, who was seeking a marriage certificate, was chopped to pieces by a bonesaw and disposed off casually in an oven.

There's no denying The Dissident - complete with its call to action at the end - is to be anything more than an incendiary definitive account of a shocking murder and appalling sense of state-sanctioned terrorism.

In truth, it succeeds.

It's awful in the truest sense of the word. But maybe if Fogel had held off some of the flashier edges and computer generated graphics to push its more sensational accusations, it would have been a stratospheric piece of film-making. As it is, it's got a fire in its belly that's hard to deny and a power that's compelling from beginning to end.