Queendom
In the face of cultural oppression, the Russian activist and performance artist Gena Marvin dares to express her individuality.
At the 2023 Zürich Film Festival Queendom won the audience award as best film and duplicated that win at the Camden Film Festival which, devoted to documentaries, takes place not in North London but off the coast of Maine. It has won other awards too and the fact that I found myself unable to join in the seemingly widespread enthusiasm for this debut feature by Agniia Galdanova illustrates in an unusually vivid way the extent to which responses to a film depend on what the viewer seeks from it.
Filmed between 2019 and early 2023, Queendom offers us a portrait of Gena Marvin who, although still less than twenty-five years old, has achieved fame as a performance artist. It is central to her art that having been born male she chooses to dress in eye-catching drag and platform heels and thus attired to walk around attracting attention (that Gena is also tall and bald further serves to get her noticed). Gena prefers to be considered female even though not apparently ascribing to any clear gender or sexual orientation. To promote freedom for self-identification in this way renders Gena Marvin a bold figure and one representative of our times. The fact that Gena having been born in the eastern seaport town of Magadan is Russian and is prepared to act in this way not only there but in Moscow is a sign of remarkable bravery.
It follows therefore that Gena Marvin is fully worthy of being featured in a sympathetic film and those who identify closely with Gena's outlook may well relish Queendom simply for offering that. Putin’s attack on Ukraine, which comes up about two-thirds of the way through the film, leads to Gena expressing total abhorrence of what is happening and this provides yet another reason to admire her. Nevertheless, as someone ignorant of Gena Marvin I approached Queendom looking for an informative work that would help me to understand the art and also the outlook that has produced it while also providing enough biographical detail for the film to be a telling character study. But such is Agniia Galdanova’s approach that she opts for no commentary, few direct statements from Marvin, no discussion of the art and a film with little sense of shape. Observation for its own sake is preferred to any real narrative flow and little indication is given of how time is passing. Locations - be they Magadan, Moscow or, later on, Paris - are clearly named but it is only news about Ukraine that pinpoints a particular month or year.
In terms of family history, we do see Gena’s grandparents and, while her grandmother is largely sympathetic, we realise that grandfather is hostile to any idea other than Gena accepting a normal life as a husband and father preferably working as a cleaner or a plumber instead of following any artistic calling. But, if their attitudes are clear, others we meet – friends, acquaintances, possibly other family members – remain unidentified. There is one belated reference to Gena's mother being dead but, that apart, the absent parents go unmentioned. As for significant events in Gena's life, these are often brushed over indistinctly. One example concerns a visa that is needed but proves problematic despite which we then simply see Gena at the airport ready to depart. During a war protest we witness Gena being seized but she is still free to make that subsequent escape. There is a later reference to being tried but that is so vague that it clarifies nothing.
In the case of the art, we are told at one point that Gena has been invited to participate in an exhibition in Italy but what that would involve is again left unclear. We keep seeing Gena out walking and, rather like Quentin Crisp in an earlier age, that in itself counts as a statement of presence. Nevertheless, the only response seen consists of hostile reactions and, given the extreme risks of doing this in Russia, one wonders how much it achieves. Apparently Gena has many followers on Instagram and TikTok but, even if an opening shoot may be relevant to that, we get little detail of what is expressed online or of the responses that might well show its value. Elsewhere Queendom does feature three short scenes, two of them outdoors at night, in which Gena’s image accompanied by strong music takes on something more surreal and creature-like but no explanation or comment accompanies them. Much later on a walk is shown in which instead of dressing up in drag Gena, wearing only underpants, has barbed wire twisted around her body and this evocation of Putin’s enslavement of Russia and of his desire to do the same to Ukraine at last provides potent evidence of Gena Marvin’s right to be considered an artist. But I waited in vain for more detailed comment and elaboration than Queendom ever provides.
Oddly enough the film does come to work better, but only in its final moments. Although it is shot in wide screen, there is a climactic sequence that ends very effectively in a long-held close-up - it's the most emotional moment in the film and with fine judgement it has no music backing it. A few more images follow and conclude no less tellingly with an even bigger close-up. Thereafter it's just the end credits, but most aptly they are accompanied by a song by Sevdaliza. Its title is ‘Human’ and it is the perfect note on which to end the film. Would that everything that precedes these last few minutes had been of the same quality! In that event, rather than merely presenting a timely picture of someone who is non-binary and queer, this film might well have done full justice to the extraordinary figure that is Gena Marvin.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Gena Marvin.
Dir Agniia Galdanova, Pro Agniia Galdanova and Igor Myakotin, Ph Rusian Fedotov, Ed Anna Zalevskaya, Music Toke Brorsonodin and Damien Vandesande.
Doc Society/Inmaat Productions/Sundance Institute/Vancouver Film School-Dogwoof Releasing.
96 mins. UK/France. 2023. UK Rel: 1 December 2023. Cert. 15.
