Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer hit DVD on Feb. 11th from Cinedigm.
I enjoyed watching Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, even if “enjoyed” doesn’t seem quite the right word for watching a great injustice unfold before your eyes.
Up until fairly recently, I’ve been blissfully ignorant of the corruption that seems to plague Russia under the reign of Vladimir Putin. This is one of the things that’s so great about living in a free society: you have the luxury of ignoring the injustices outside your usual purview.
We take for granted certain freedoms that we as Americans have, because it’s never not been that way for us. It’s hard to even imagine such a state of affairs, really. So I suppose my interest in a documentary about the incident came not from any kind of ideological stance, but from a far less commendable curiosity to see what the big deal was.
For those who are just as uninformed as I was, this documentary details what happens when three of the members of a feminist punk rock protest group are arrested for staging a guerrilla show at the Cathedral Of Christ The Savior. Which in itself doesn’t seem like much of a crime. And, the movie would argue, it isn’t.
The situation expands outward as the trial for what is, at worst, a puckish stunt becomes a referendum on a hopelessly corrupt system, and the power of art to inspire revolution.
To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t spell things out for you. I think one of the reasons I have something of an aversion to documentaries is that I often feel like I’m being preached to. I like to come to my own opinions in my own time, and often I’ll find a documentary presents a one-sided argument in favor of their own thesis, which is their right to do, but isn’t really an approach that appeals to me.
Filmmakers Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin watch events unfold with a dispassionate eye, and allow the viewer to draw their own conclusions. While to my mind, it’d be hard to argue against the idea that the members of Pussy Riot got screwed, their victims (for lack of a better word) are also allowed a voice, and their complaints range from fair to pretty freakin’ nutty.
Lerner and Pozdorovkin allow everybody to hang themselves with their own words, and on occasion that includes the girls themselves.
Of course we spend time getting to know the members, Nadia, Katya, and Masha. And, as should be expected, they’re smart, idealistic, and dedicated to positive change. Not for a moment did I question their motives, and every step of the way I felt great sympathy for their predicament (the scenes of them being interviewed and photographed in cages like zoo animals is chilling).
But, if I’m being honest, I can’t say I’m sure about their methods.
I think it’s safe to say that getting arrested and being put on trial was probably not their intention. But as far as I can tell, that’s what led to their international fame and to the world standing up to take notice. Not the art itself, but the unplanned and unexpected outcome of that art, of that statement.
Punk, by its very nature, is an artless thing. It’s the sound of sheer passion. The music we hear from Pussy Riot is rough, and crude, and about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the brain (Frankly, I preferred Peaches’ “Free Pussy Riot” to any of their songs. Clearly, the way to my conscience is through sick beats…)
At any rate, the takeaway is this: Far less than the music, the message is what truly matters.
But I’m given to wonder: who does that message reach? Does it only fall on the ears of those that already agree? Does it truly have the power to change hearts and minds, or does the inherent stridency work against them?
It’s a reasonable question, and one I think the documentary grapples with, in its own way. I don’t think it comes to any conclusions, because there are no easy answers, really. All we can say for sure is that these women should not have had to go through what they went through, and that a system that allows this to happen is not a system that works in any sense of the word.
If there’s a flaw to the movie, it’s that it’s never quite fully spelled out what their beef with the Orthodox Church is. There are statements of the intertwining of church and state (which is definitely a bad idea), and some of the customs alluded to seem staggeringly retrograde, but at times it almost seems taken for granted that we all get why what’s happening is wrong (and to be fair, the one piece of footage featuring a talking Vladimir Putin makes him seem like a straight up Bond villain).
(Also, the subtitles are crazy small, and often blended in with the background, making me occasionally miss important information.)
These are minor complaints, though. This is a fascinating, riveting work. (And even though I didn’t mention it, often quite funny. The girls’ deadpan reaction to being name checked by Madonna is priceless)
Recommended, even if the real world isn’t your thing.
SPECIAL FEATURES: A trailer; A twenty minute Skype Q & A with Katya Samutsevich, where her ever-so-slightly flummoxed translator steals the show…
