By David D’Arcy 

We learn that Navalny — if we didn’t know it already from reporters who cling to Putin’s charismatic nemesis — is a persuasive man who has gotten a long way on his wits and courage.

A scene from Navalny. Photo: CNN Films

Now that Vladimir Putin seems determined to send Russian troops into Ukraine — more precisely, into the part of Ukraine where Russian troops aren’t already in charge — the saga of the now-imprisoned challenger to Putin’s rule, Alexei Navalny, 45, may seem like a side show.

Putin’s ire at a persistent and popular critic can be seen in the documentary Navalny, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was directed by Daniel Roher, whose debut doc feature, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, opened the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.

Following Navalny, who always seemed to be a Kremlin target — an FSB operative admits that he was just that — the film reminds us of Putin’s willingness to crush any credible opposition to his tightfisted hold on power via a hardfisted imposition of authority. The documentary moves from evoking horror at the machinations of a dictator driven by vengeance to an exposure of ham-handed police operations in scenes that seem like satire. Of course, as we’ve seen with others on the receiving end of that displeasure, maladroit Russian cops can still hurt and kill.

The deftly edited doc is inspiring, shocking, and, at moments, wildly funny. Most of the facts about Navalny’s treatment are already well known, but Roher manages to generate suspense about familiar events. To his advantage, he has a lot to work with.

The film begins with the assumption that it’s a miracle that the defiant Navalny, a lawyer by training and founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), is still alive. To that point, Roher asks his subject a question that becomes all the more essential as we get to know Navalny. What should Navalny’s followers do if he ends up dead?

Navalny, we learn — if we didn’t know it already from reporters who cling to Putin’s charismatic nemesis — is a persuasive man who has gotten a long way on his wits and courage. His response to Roher’s question: concentrate on what I’m able to achieve, rather than make a boring film dedicated to my memory if the worst happens.

Following Navalny around is anything but boring, but it isn’t safe. In the doc, which shifts back and forth in time as it begins, we meet Navalny in a German village, after his life has been saved from a chemical attack that almost killed him. Then we head to Novosibirsk in Siberia to watch him on his feet, rousing crowds who scream “thief,” after he shouts the name “Putin.”

“I didn’t say it, you did,” he tells his laughing audience.

In Siberia in August 2020, Navalny is hit in the face with a toxic green liquid that turns out to be Novachuk, a poison favored by the FSB (formerly the KGB). The damage is so severe that the plane he boards to take him to Moscow is forced to land in the city of Omsk. Navalny is locked in a hospital room guarded by police. Thanks to pressure from his family, the press, and foreign governments, he’s put on another plane, operated by a German medical charity, and flown out of the country. He survives, barely. Roher’s camera is with him for much of this.

The attack fits a pattern of Putin poisoning his enemies. But how does anyone prove that? Here the investigation pivots to what looks like comedy. Navalny’s team, in Germany, with Christo Guesov, a tech-savvy Bulgarian journalist from the investigative group Bellingcat, tracks the flights preceding the assault on Navalny, bribing hackers for airline manifests and passport data. Information identifying members of the FSB gushes out. What emerges from an agent in that crew who’s tricked into talking when reached by phone, is a detailed account of a “gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight” FSB team of would-be assassins. Not even America’s Most Wanted gets criminals to do that. (You can read the Bellingcat report and listen to Navalny’s conversation with an FSB agent below.) We hear that the agent in question has not been seen since.

The comedy doesn’t end with duping a Russian thug. In pro-government Russian media, which for years, like Putin himself, would not deign to even mention Navalny’s name, the opposition leader was attacked and ridiculed. The film shows national TV hosts accusing Navalny of engaging in “political pedophilia,” whatever that is, and other acts against the state.

These scenes are darkly magical farce — drop-dead funny might be the term — all the more magical because they are true. But the joke only goes so far. As the world knows, Navalny insisted on returning to Russia, and we watch him being taken into custody on his arrival. He’s now in prison for two and a half years for violating the terms of his parole while recovering in Germany from the deadly attack — punished for surviving.

As its subject sits in a cell, Navalny the documentary is also about Russia and Putin. Premiering now, it’s been overtaken by events as Russian troops threaten Ukraine. If Ukrainians who love their independence have any doubts about Putin’s intentions toward their country, this film will remind them what they surely know already.

This week Russia officially added Navalny to its “terror list.” On Tuesday, Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service placed Navalny and at least seven of his aides on a list of individuals who support “terrorist or extremist” organizations. That classification blocks access to the Russian banking system, a form of internal sanction. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) was outlawed last year.

David D’Arcy lives in New York. For years, he was a programmer for the Haifa International Film Festival in Israel. He writes about art for many publications, including the Art Newspaper. He produced and co-wrote the documentary Portrait of Wally (2012), about the fight over a Nazi-looted painting found at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.