"Agents of Chaos" (2020 release; 2 parts of 115 min, each) is a documentary about what Russia's been up to relative to the US elections in 2016. As Part 1 opens, we hear from the Editor-In-Chief of Russia Today, the state-run TV channel that is the master of disinformation. "That is how democracy is supposed to work", she smirks. In a voice -over, director Alex Gibney ponders: "if there is one clear conclusion from Special Counsel Mueller's report, it's that Russia interfered. But how did that work exactly?", and with that, we dive into the first of two topics that Gibey looks at in Part 1. First we get "Trolls", where Gibney examines in excruciating detail the humble origins of the infamous troll factory IRA in St. Petersburg, focusing on massively spreading disinformation into Ukraine in late 2013/early 2014, and eventually directing its attention to the US. One of the Russian talking heads interviewed for this calls it the "carousel of lies". The second topic is "Hack", where Gibney looks at how Russia relentlessly hacks into computer systems and data banks, including of course the DNC...

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from director Alex Gibney ("The Armstrong Lie", "Going Clear: Scientology and the prison of Belief"). He is without a doubt one of the more prominent documentary filmmakers of this generation, nothing short of the gold standard. Here he directs his attention to what Russia has been up to relative to spreading disinformation and hacking data banks. It is frankly utterly depressing to see how easily it all has been done. Interestingly, in this Part 1 pf the documentary, Trump is barely mentioned (the Trump campaign's interactions with Russia will be assessed in Part 2 of the documentary). "Was the IRA troll factory pro-Trump?", asks Gibney to one of the US experts interviewed for this. "It was anti-America", is the devastating response. And Gibney doesn't let off the Obama administration easily, calling into question why not more of what it knew in 2016 about the Russian tolling and the hacking was revealed to the American public." To anyone who is drinking the Trump Kool-Aid by the gallons, this documentary will of course be deemed "fake" and a "hoax", but the nuanced details with which Gibney and his team reveal what is going on show differently. That is why this documentary is utterly depressing yet must-see.

Part 1 of "Agents of Chaos" premiered earlier this week on HBO earlier this week, and is now available on HBO On Demand and other streaming services. Part 2 will follow very shortly. If you have any interest in understanding how Russia is meddling with our democracy, without any fear of retribution, I'd readily encourage you to check it out, and draw your own conclusion.