Sundance movie four: Notorious indeed.

Part of the production team including
Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin

First, this review is compromised.  The screening didn't start until 9:45 and I'd had a long and busy day.  So I'll admit it, I occasionally nodded off during the film.  And when most of the language featured in the film is Russian, nodding off means you're not reading the subtitles. Which means you're missing a lot of what's going on. (By the way, I heard a woman in line the following day who had also been at the screening and complained that she couldn't stop falling asleep. So I wasn't the only one.) The fact that I found it difficult to stay awake doesn't speak well to excitement of The Notorious Mr. Bout from filmmakers Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin.

The movie tells the story of Viktor Bout, a Russian man who is a crafty character that ends up making a lot of money doing everything from dealing arms to transporting all manner of stuff as an airline tycoon.  He goes from rags to riches and then ultimately ends up in a US prison. He documents his own story with video he shot himself. In fact, most of this movie is video shot by Mr. Bout.  That makes the movie both interesting and annoying.  The story is surprisingly real because of the raw nature of the footage.  But that raw footage amounts to a lot of bad home movies, shot on equipment that's old enough it can sometimes be tedious, even uncomfortable to watch.  I don't think the filmmakers helped the situation by adding consistent visual noise to the tapes.  I understand the reasoning behind doing it; to try and bring a level of uniformity to the movie.  But in the end, I think the noise made the movie less watchable.

Viktor Bout is a shady character.  This movie is interesting in that it makes the case that Mr. Bouts decades' long incarceration in the US might be unfair considering most of what he did was perfectly legal.  I think they made the case convincingly. But I don't think they made the case from a literary perspective.  Because while Viktor Bout may have acted legally, is motivations still came across as then than honorable.  But with all the recent about the intense corruption surrounding the upcoming Olympics in Russia, Bout may have just been engaged in business as usual.

Maybe Art can change the world.

Sundance has done a great job at celebrating some of the world's most controversial artists. The past couple of years we've seen movies that celebrate artists who are making waves in the world of politics.  Last year it was Never Sorry featuring artist Ai Weiwei who's been tormenting the Chinese government for decades.  This year, it was Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer from directors Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin.

The film tells the true story of a Russian feminist performance-art collective known as Pussy Riot, a group that protests Vladimir Putin and his government with guerilla, punk-rock performances. In 2012, members of the group performed at Moscow's most prominent cathedral, criticizing not only the government but also its relationship with the Orthodox church.  While Pussy Riot's previous performances had gotten noticed, this performance hit a nerve that ended in the arrest of three young women.

Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer tells the story of those three women and the show trial that intends to put them in their place.  In their young twenties, it's surprising how strong and committed these three women are. Movies like this make me question my dedication to my principles.  I'm not sure I have the courage to defend my beliefs in the face of such authoritarian power.  The surprising part in all of this is that the performance in the cathedral isn't really that interesting and was probably a stupid thing to do.  Even the women in the film acknowledge they might do things differently if given the chance to do it over. But that fact can't diminish the power of their actions.

My favorite character in the movie is Nadia, a beautiful young woman with a mouth that naturally smiles which can make her look mischievous.  Even before Pussy Riot, Nadia had a career as a performance artist.  She participated in a public orgy at a Russian biology museum.  You can imagine how that fact went over in a Russian court.  Nadia will be one to watch.  I'll bet once she's out of prison, the art world will be falling all over themselves to celebrate her work.

This movie isn't perfect.  It relies too much on television footage to tell its story.  I wish the filmmakers had been involved in the story early on.  Instead, this is a movie crafted after the fact which makes it feel more like an episode of 20/20 than a documentary.  Nonetheless, this is definitely a film worth seeing.  It's a reminder that we can all work harder to make the world a better place.