More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
22 August (updated 23 November - see asterisked paragraph)
I knew enough to make sure that I was accompanied by a native Russian when I saw Pussy Riot : A Punk Prayer (2013), if only because I wanted to hear whether the subtitles were both accurate and caught the essence.
However, it has to be said that the extensive perspectives shared afterwards by my sleeper-agent friend (we'll call her Agent Y) make me think that, without her there, I would have felt that I understood what was going on in this documentary, but have missed almost everything that, had I but known it, would have caused me to question the first-blush impression.
Starting with one thing, the three young women who were caught and put on trial after the events of 21 February 2012 (Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Nadia), Maria Alyokhina (Masha), and Yekaterina Samutsevich (Katia)), one might have thought that there was a gross over-reaction in their ending up with two years each in a labour camp*. My point of comparison, probably, would have been the protest around a decade ago that sought to disrupt a live broadcast from Canterbury Cathedral - it must have been on the issue of gay clergy in the Church of England**.
What I, in trying to be worthy, may have been overlooking was the simple possibility that these women, however deeply held their beliefs, also just wanted to be somebody - after all, Maria's (?) mother did tell us that she had been very keen on The Spice Girls, in particular Victoria Beckham. Whatever girl power had really ever been about, it had never conflicted with self-advancement, it must be said.
Contrast their situation with that of people put away for sentences five times longer for being 'guilty' just by association with Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, and one could not help realizing that the plight of the rioting trio had to be looked at in the round. From what Agent Y said, which reminded me of things that I had heard before, there is more than a strong hint that Khodorkovskiy's continued and lengthening incarceration is Putin locking up a significant political rival.
Which leads on to another take on the trio : there seemed to be very free access to high-quality filming of all three girls' statements, both immediately prior to deliberation, conviction and sentencing, and for the appeal. They all spoke - as far as I could tell - with great assurance, and with clear articulation of the arguments and points that they wished to make, and nothing (except not being a Russian) got in the way of hearing every word of what they had to say.
* At Aldeburgh Documentary Festival last weekend, Nick Fraser, editor for the BBC for its Storyville series, commented on the footage of the trial : according to what he said in conversation with journalist Mary Ann Sieghart, after a screening of Rafea (2012), when it came to light, there was surprise that it existed, and no one quite knew how it had been obtained (and what the implications of using it might be). *
The attention of the world's media and press was on all this - we were shown part of an RT interview, and I recognized, for example, the initials on a microphone of Westdeutscher Rundfunk - but what, actually, was all this in relation to the other issues of Putin's Russia from which, maybe not wholly inconveniently, this served as a high-capacity sideshow ?
Couple this with some facts about the Cathedral that we were shown, outside and in (including in the infamous 30-second protest), and, however sincerely Pussy Riot's members on that day were seeking to further feminism and challenge sexism, one has to question what all this was about other than skin deep.
We were told that the Cathedral of Christ The Saviour was built in 1812, demolished (as we were dramatically shown) in the Soviet era, became the site of a swimming-pool, and rebuilt following Gorbachev - even if it could have been shown that there was a real heritage attaching to this place (despite simply not having existed for decades), Agent Y tells me that this so-called Cathedral is more in the political ceremonial arena, about as much a place of religious veneration as The Palace of Westminster.
Yes, one of the matters that the rioters listed as their issues (we did not really hear much from any of the other members of Pussy Riot, although it is clear that they are not, as perceived, the three who were on trial, plus those who managed to escape) was the lack of separation between Church and State, but this - for all its associations - seems to be as little a holy place per se as The Cenotaph. No one wants people to be disrespectful to The Cenotaph by association with the war dead, but to claim that it is a holy place is far fetched. Apparently, the Cathedral of Christ The Saviour is more of a civic memorial, less a spiritual one.
If, as is often said, The Church of England is, variously, the Conservative Party or The Establishment at prayer, a protest in The General Synod would have a religious element to it, but not seem blasphemous or desecrating a shrine in the way that was claimed by and for the Russian protectors of the Faith, who seemed quick enough to want to say (and without clearly distancing themselves from the perception)that Islam would have beheaded Pussy Riot for similar actions in a mosque (a double whammy of claiming another's intolerance, whilst being one slightly less hard line oneself).
Back at the film, we were left feeling that this was a holy of holies, rather than a perfect symbol of the Church being the reactionary servant of Putin's government - the status of this Cathedral is at the centre of our appreciation of what significance the members' action had. However, we were, at best, shown the Cathedral's congregation called to public prayer, with nothing, other than the police trying to move them on and a spat when tensions ran high, to say that they were not the unforgiving extremists whom they appeared. By which I mean that it was claimed that, because of how they appeared and what they did, the women must have been 'possessed' (a view shared by a host of a t.v. show of which we saw a clip), and there generally seemed - other than rather mechanistic waving of icons of The Virgin and Child - very little other than a human reaction to 'the offence' (real or perceived), and not a Divine one (or a mention of this saviour).
I forget who, but someone observed that no one would have derived any meaning, from the brief moments before the security guards stepped in, from the protest in the Cathedral - Pussy Riot proudly circulated footage of it, but, at face value, a few disarrayed seconds were never going to change the world, let alone put what was (apparently misleadingly) translated as It's God shit in context. Agent Y tells me that the actual phrase conveys a sense of going through the motions, of faking a faith : perhaps appropriate for people so offended, as six present were, that they had to complain to the prosecutor about how hurt they were.
We saw Pussy Riot's filming of three other demonstrations - at best, we were told that those taking part had received 'administrative fines', but no one could explain how their actions had not been known to Putin before. Then again, Agent Y says that, contrary to the assertion made by those close to the group that conceptual / performance art and staging a happening are not understood in Russia, such things are hardly new in Moscow, and, thus, that a man used to behave like a dog to the extent of excreting in the street.
In essence, one could sympathize with the Pussy Riot group in wanting to oppose sexism, and promote feminism, in the arena of Putin's politics. How effectual their protest had been before they chose a more high-profile target must be questioned, and what they expected from it, but so also must the film's complicity in presenting the Cathedral as more than a token religious place. If they have taken heat off Putin's other actions, allowing such free access to the court proceedings and to the women's relatives might have been a price well worth someone paying.
End-notes
* One, Katia (?), was released on appeal - unlikely though it seemed, an argument on a technicality was accepted to free her.
However, one must admit that things can be seen differently : Agent Y interpreted using an argument to get out of jail as saying that Katia did not really support her fellow members of Pussy Riot, whereas I observed that, even with the case of those who make or attempted to make mass-murder with explosive devices, the accused terrorists never say We are terrorists and proud of it - we did these things, but expect their guilt to be shown.
As to Katia's father, Agent Y perceived him as having been privileged with a good wage and a dacha before perestroika. That may have been so, but that was no reason to think that his proudly giving out photos of his imprisoned daughter was not genuine pride in her and what she was fighting for, rather than clutching at importance on her coat-tails.
** In fact, it was as far back as 12 April 1998 (Easter Sunday), when Peter Tatchell and six other members of OutRage! made a protest : as a man of good character, Tatchell received a small fine, was ordered to pay costs, and was told that a custodial sentence had not been in issue.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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