Ithaka

Ithaka shows us how time and experience have lent perspective to it all, affectingly focusing on Assange’s elderly father John Shipton, and Assange’s fiancee Stella Moris (now his wife), who have doggedly fought for Assange’s rights as an investigative journalist and publisher.

You won’t find much ambiguity on these subjects in the documentary Ithaka, directed by Ben Lawrence and produced by Assange’s half-brother, Gabriel Shipton. Unsurprisingly, it’s totally Team Julian.

Shipton is a fascinating character – abrupt, ill at ease with the voracious press attention, but also possessed of a sharp, unusual intelligence that tends to veer off at jarring tangents.

Ithaka isn’t as effective an advocacy doc as it could be, sometimes feeling trapped between wanting to intellectualize with onscreen text and contextualized history and looking for observational moments that crystallize the pain and concern for the Assange family.

Laura Poitras’s 2017 documentary “Risk” was a close-up portrait of Assange, shot during his early years of infamy and as fascinating, in a squirmy way, as Assange himself. “Ithaka” is less about the man than the cause — how the continued prosecution of Assange fits into the issue of free speech. It’s a more morally clean-cut watch. But it’s a lot less dramatic.

The documentary repeats three monotonous points: Journalists lie. Regardless, Assange is a journalist who deserves protection. Also, his family misses him a heck of a lot.