Tuesday, June 25, 2013
'Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer' (2013) directed by Mike Lerner & Maxim Pozdorovkin
A defining symbol of the modern age is an individual standing in opposition to vast, oppressive state machinery. Perhaps the defining image is Tiananmen Square's 'Tank Man', an unknown individual standing in front of a column of tanks, a simple protest that reverberated around the world, becoming one of the iconic images of the 20th century. There's something both inspiring and terrifying about individuals who are prepared to throw themselves into the gears of a vast machine, becoming a thorn in the side of men with Mammon-like financial resources, literal armies of goons and very dark and miserable holes that they can throw you in.
This documentary follows the process by which a state brings its full might to bear on Nadya, Katya and Masha, three members of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist punk rock art collective famous for their guerilla performances. Their most notorious and effective invoved them invading the soleas of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and singing a "punk prayer" to protest the Orthodox Church's support of Vladimir Putin.
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| Pussy Riot rehearsing |
The documentary chronologically follows the events leading up and including their trial. The director's sympathies naturally lie with Pussy Riot, who function as our de facto heroines in this narrative, with the Orthodox Church and Vladimir Putin as the villains of the piece. Despite this there are efforts made to explore the arguments of those opposed to Pussy Riot. The film interviewes Christians who appear sincerely offended by the performance inside the church, there's a brief chat with the prosecution lawyers in the trial and, most disturbingly, a peek at the 'Carriers of the Cross'. They're a bunch of neo-Nazi looking men with skulls on their t-shirts who refer to Pussy Riot as "demons", "witches" and ominously comment that they would have been burned at the stake in times past.
This is cut together with clips from Russian media discussing the case, all of which adds up to pretty scary sense of foreboding. We see phalanxes of police cars speeding about, protesters being manhandled and assaulted and omnipresent legions of sour-faced, uniformed prison guards - these images always have low synth bass tones accompanying them; an intense humming of evil that builds up an aura of evil around the Russian state. We can see the cogs of the state apparatus inexorably turning, trying to grind down Pussy Riot with bureaucracy, legal minutia and public oppression of their supporters.
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| 'The Carriers of the Cross' |
The film is most successful when it contrasts this atmosphere of banal, corrupt small-minded ness with the exhilarating and dynamic freedom of Pussy Riot. When they cut to one of their guerilla punk performances it's always a tonal jolt. The acid-neon colours, the grinding guitars, the yelled, polemic sloganeering, the flares, the shaky camera work, the smoke - it simulates in film what Pussy Riot want to achieve: radical disconnection; an electroshock to the system that shakes you out of bland, bovine thought patterns and into a more questioning, angry, switched on mindset. There's an undeniable rush of freedom in this footage: a perfect portrayal of the exquisite joy of rebellion, the punk rock pleasure of giving authority a big "fuck you".
This division between freedom and bondage continues in the court footage, where we see the three women placed inside a ridiculous glass cage during the trial. Throughout the case they're animated, intelligently interjecting in the trial and for the most part smiling and laughing when the case uses some bit of particularly ridiculous terminology. The image of three unbridled, politically aware feminists caged and surrounded by the might of the Russian state is a potent one. This documentary exploits it to the hilt, showing us both the farcical nature of 'protecting' Russia from Pussy Riot and the power of the heavy-handed, corrupt authoritarianism that is working against them.
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| Nadya, Katya and Masha in the dock. |
The court room scenes are interweaved with brief histories of these three. These sequences are great, touching, humanising and funny. I especially enjoyed the outrageous pre-Pussy Riot performance art events. But for me, the highlight of the film was watching Katya, Nadya and Masha speak in court. They explain their philosophies in a powerfully lucid condemnation of the court proceedings. While the trial was still in progress last year I attended a reading of these statements by actors at the Royal Court Bar (writeup here). They were inspiring to hear then, but in the context of this documentary they gain an even greater power, the beautiful, poetic language and lucidity effortlessly outlining the unjust way the state has stamped as hard as it could on them.
But the fact that the best moments of the film are when the three women speak on their own behalf is perhaps the root of my problems with this film. Don't get me wrong, it's a good documentary, but it's flawed simply by dint of its existence. Pussy Riot is, first and foremost, a feminist collective. Their power is derived from exploiting and subverting traditional feminine roles. While they have male allies, they achieved their success purely on their own terms, using their own initiative.
So, that this documentary is directed by men is, on some level, a critical failure, especially as it falls into the trap of telling Pussy Riot's story from a primarily masculine perspective. What's problematic is that most of what we hear about Pussy Riot is conveyed through interviews with their fathers and Nadya's husband. I imagine this is purely by necessity and all these men seem personable, intelligent and sympathetic, but nice as they are, this documentary approaches Pussy Riot through masculinity rather than femininity.
Another queasy factor in play is the involvement of corporate titans in the production and distribution of the documentary, primarily HBO. Pussy Riot explicitly reject the idea of working within the capitalist system and the members have fought against transforming Pussy Riot into a commercial venture. Now, someone, somewhere (let's face it, probably a man) is going to make a decent amount of money with this film. This rankles, and though the film has the noblest of intentions deep down there's a stench of hypocrisy. I suppose there's an argument that the sex of whoever made the film is irrelevant so long as it portrays the truth, but the idea of 'truth' in cinema, even (or perhaps especially) in a documentary is absurd. Surely the important factor is raising awareness, to communicate the scale of the injustice and furthering the reach of Pussy Riot's political stance. But then why can't Pussy Riot do that for themselves? They've done a pretty damn good job so far.
So the fact that much of the film is constructed from pre-existing video shot by Pussy Riot members and freely available court-room footage raises the question as to exactly why, if a documentary were needed to state their case, it couldn't have been produced by Pussy Riot themselves. Though this documentary is deeply sympathetic, it represents a seizure of narrative control from female artists and activists to male film-makers.
The story and politics of Pussy Riot is compelling no matter who tells it, this a deeply moving and informative documentary. It's an inspiring experience watching the three wrongly imprisoned women confidently and intelligently asserting their personal freedom in the face of corrupt, masculine authority. But still, wafting under your nose during every inspiring moment is a sickly, off-putting stink of hypocrisy. It's a noble film, a well meaning film, a professionally constructed film, but it was flawed from the moment it was conceived. Pussy Riot don't need men to tell their story. Nadya said it best:
"The only person who can legitimately represent the group is a girl in a balaclava.”
★★★
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer is in selected cinemas from July 5th.
Tags:
documentary ,
feminism ,
film ,
Katya ,
masha ,
Nadya ,
politics ,
punk ,
punk rock ,
Pussy Riot ,
Vladimir Putin
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