Why watch “Litvinenko – Investigation into the death of a dissident”

“This is a true story”. Thus opens the first of the four fifty-minute episodes of the miniseries Litvinenko – Investigation into the death of a dissidentavailable exclusively on Sky Atlantic and Now from January 25 (the first two episodes, the remaining from February 1). The series deals with death of the Russian dissident (former spy) in November 2006 due to polonium-210 poisoning and the consequent search by his wife Marina for the truth about what happened and for justice. The series, with the exception of the first episode, tells the story of Alexander Litvinenko from the point of view of the widow who for the next ten years after her husband’s death tries to clarify what happened.

The miniseries, starring an exceptional David Tennant and Margarita Levieva is produced by ITV Studios, Tiger Aspect Productions and Nent Group and makes use of the advice from former agents who handled the case, Litvinenko’s lawyer and family members. An extremely delicate page of our recent history, which touches themes and subjects closely related to our contemporaneity in its most tragic folds.

The true story of Alexander Litvinenko

Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian federal security services and the KGB, is poisoned with radioactive polonium tea and, after a (relatively) short ordeal, dies. He has time to tell the police some details which will then be fundamental to reconstructing his story in full. Litvinenko has in fact directly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being responsible for his death. A few days after the disappearance of the former secret agent, an investigation into a chemical attack on the streets of London begins and checks continue for a decade to find out what really happened.

Litvinenko, the language of a series that works by subtraction

As per tradition for British miniseries, Litvinenko also chooses to adopt an extremely dry narrative stylein which every word is weighed and the staging – in its own essentiality – acts as a visual counterpoint to what is represented. There is almost never background music, the light is cold and envelops the scenes in a suspended atmosphere which, at least as regards the first episode, permeates the whole story. Litvinenko (Tennant) is deposed in his hospital bed with a large window behind him from which the light filters and, with increasing difficulty given the worsening of his physical condition, he tells the two agents who have come to record the deposition how much does he know about what happened to him. Although the narrative style chosen is very essential and measured, there are some more emotional passages (always in subtraction), especially when Alexander talks about his family and the legacy he intends to deliver to them.

Litvinenko, an indigestible narration

Particular – and not so happy – the choice to adopt an uneven trend in the story appears. If the pilot of the miniseries is well calibrated between the more emotional narration and the documentary/chronicle story that leads, at the end of the episode, to the death of the Russian dissident, the subsequent episodes are instead more tiring. In fact, we are witnessing a meticulous historical reconstruction and a constant search for evidence, losing the component of an emotional bond and adopting an extremely dilated narrative rhythm. This makes the vision, despite the fact that the topic is interesting in itself and very innervated in current issues, a bit tricky and lately not always engaging for the viewer.

Litvinenko’s pitch in four bars

“I have to report a homicide. Mine”.

“I know how it happened. I know when and I know why.”

“I will die, yes. But I will die a free man. My wife and son are free.”

“I told my son: remember for life that this country saved us”