Ithaka

Overview

To look at John Shipton is to see the obvious, even if you've never laid eyes upon him before. The family resemblance is immediately clear, and the traits that've likely been passed down from father to son — determination and persistence, blatantly — become apparent within minutes. Shipton needs to be resolute for the battle that documentary Ithaka captures. It's a fight that's been waged for a decade now, publicly, and not just in embassies and courtrooms but across news headlines worldwide. He's visibly Julian Assange's dad, and he's been helping spearhead the campaign for the WikiLeaks founder's release. Assange fell afoul of US authorities in 2010, when his non-profit whistleblower organisation published documents about the American military's war crimes leaked by army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. As Ithaka makes plain, The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel revealed the same information at the same time; however, only Assange now sits in London's Belmarsh prison.

Plenty about the past 12 years since Manning's leaks were exposed to the world is filled with numbers. Plenty about the ten years this June since Assange first took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London is as well. The Australian editor and publisher spent almost seven years in that diplomatic space, seeking political asylum from sexual misconduct allegations in Sweden that he contended would be used to extradite him to America. If the US succeeds in its efforts, and in its espionage charges against him, he faces up to 175 years in incarceration. The list of figures goes on, but filmmaker Ben Lawrence (Hearts and Bones) makes two pivotal choices. Firstly, he surveys Assange's current struggle not through the Aussie himself, but through both Shipton and Stella Moris, his South African-born lawyer and now wife. Secondly, although those aforementioned numbers are inescapable, the riveting and affecting Ithaka brings humanity to this well-publicised plight. 

Moris herself sums up the movie's position best at the unveiling of a statue of Assange in Geneva. "I'm here to remind you that Julian isn't a name, he isn't a symbol; he's a man and he's suffering," she says. It's a reminder that Ithaka's audience might need, given how ubiquitous Assange's tale has become, including on-screen — in fellow docos We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks and Risk, and in dramas Underground: The Julian Assange Story and The Fifth Estate — and how polarising he has proven. Risk attempted to grapple with his contradictions, but Ithaka almost deems them irrelevant. Lawrence doesn't dismiss, excuse or pander; rather, he knows that Shipton and Moris' point remains regardless: that how Assange has been treated for receiving and publishing information is a human rights abuse, as well as an attack on the freedom of the press.

That notion echoes again and again in Ithaka alongside its rousing soundtrack by Brian Eno, and with passion; to look at both Shipton and Moris is to see the fervour blazing tirelessly in their eyes, too. Making his second documentary after 2018's Ghosthunter, Lawrence fills the bulk of his naturalistically shot frames with the pair working against Assange's possible extradition, and for justice, with that avid gleam given ample opportunities to keep burning. Again, among the litany of opinions that he's evoked over the years, the idea that the Australian deserves life in prison for distributing Manning's intel to the world — or that anyone does — shouldn't have a place. Ithaka's allegiances are never in doubt, even without knowing that Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton is one of its producers, but giving time to the WikiLeaks creator's critics wouldn't and couldn't have changed its core position.

Lawrence knows what everyone watching knows, though: that the mantra behind the movie isn't a new one. Accordingly, the film shows as much as it tells — leaving the telling to Shipton, Moris and talking-head interviewees; and having cinematographer Niels Ladefoged (an assistant editor on the original Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) deeply and carefully observe the minutiae around Ithaka's core duo. The documentary can veer towards the procedural as a result, including when Moris works through a desperate and ultimately unsuccessful plan to get then-US President Donald Trump to issue a pardon. It's always personal, of course; that Assange is primarily present as a voice on the phone, aka exactly how his father and wife have interacted with him during his time at Belmarsh, especially after the pandemic hit, only makes that feeling all the more evident.

Shipton and Moris have long stressed the stakes for Assange — Moris' Geneva remarks are just one such instance captured in the feature — but Ithaka is equally concerned with the impact upon the pair. It doesn't just use the two as a different access point into this now-familiar story, but to illustrate the emotional and psychological burden that falls upon them as they crusade, lobby and also worry. As Assange's legal battles are prolonged, septuagenarian Shipton loses time with his five-year-old daughter in Australia, while Moris raises her two children with Assange alone. Alongside tenacity, weariness lingers in their eyes as well. It's there, noticeably, when Shipton rankles against pointless or ill-thought-out questions, and when he's ceaselessly direct in response.

Assange's case continues; he awaits the latest ruling in his efforts to avoid extradition, a matter that's been before the courts for years now. Previously, it was decreed that his mental health would suffer, and he'd be a suicide risk in the conditions that'd greet him in America; however, the US government has kept pressing, winning a High Court judgement in its favour in late 2021, while Assange's team keeps fighting back. Ithaka overtly aims to raise awareness; the documentary is an act of activism as much as a portrait of Shipton and Moris. It's engrossing and fascinating, too, plus powerful viewing on a subject, and a person, that's rarely been far from the media's gaze for the bulk of this century — but not like this.