A Hacker Said He Had Proof the CIA Caused the Anthrax Attacks. They Had Him Arrested for Child Porn.

Richard Porton

Sonia Kennebeck begins her documentary Enemies of the State with an epigraph from Oscar Wilde: The truth is never pure and rarely simple. By the conclusion of Kennebecks film, which premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival, the convoluted series of events she recounts reveal that nothing is straightforward about the case her documentary dissectsthe strange saga of Matt DeHart, a man hailed by his supporters as a whistleblower and denounced by his detractors as a sex predator. Instead of assuaging the audiences curiosity and providing a clear-cut resolution to this murky scenario, Kennebeck, whether courageously or perversely, leaves her viewers hanging. Perhaps the opaque nature of the DeHart controversy, replete with unyielding positions from partisans on both sides, leaves her no choice.

The legal and ethical quandaries posed by DeHarts case seemed tailor-made to polarize opposing political factions, even though the terms of the debate reflect a pre-Trump era when the FBI and CIA were still mistrusted by liberals and Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were not presumed to be linked to Russian disinformation schemes.

Kennebeck, despite her best intentions, cannot help but fall down a certain rabbit hole in which the bewildering, uncertain nature of all of these accusations and counter-accusations cannot be resolved and the viewer is forced to conclude either that DeHart has been the victim of a nefarious smear campaign spearheaded by American intelligence, which benefits from Americans gullible assumptions concerning the supposedly ubiquitous presence of pedophilia in our midst (which has only increased with the recent burgeoning popularity of deranged conspiracy theories such as QAnon), or is attempting to camouflage his involvement with child porn by emphasizing the unsavory motivations of both the FBI and CIA.

Its certainly no coincidence that Errol Morris signed on as Enemies of the States executive producer. The film reflects many of the strongest and weakest attributes of Morriss work. Morriss best documentaries, especially his landmark investigative film The Thin Blue Line (1988) and Wormwood (2017), his more recent Netflix series, skillfully create an eerie ambiance by intermingling interviews, re-enactments, and an ominous musical soundtrack to enshrine heroic victims. Unfortunately, these stratagems, at their worst, become hollow gimmicks.

Perhaps through no fault of her own, Kennebecks efforts as a Morris epigone flounder because the facts prove unreliable, and DeHart remains as much of an enigma at the end of her documentary as he was at its beginning. Its also arguable that her unwillingness to come down on one side or another of the DeHart imbroglio is something of a copout. Leaving conclusions up to the viewer can occasionally serve as a rationale for abdicating directorial responsibility. Its also quite possible that Kennebeck finds it impossible to assess the contradictory evidence wrought by DeHarts legal entanglements, and can only invite viewers into an ethical purgatory where uncertainty is inevitable.

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