Educational Media Reviews Online

This is not the first and perhaps not last documentary film on Femen, a media savvy group of radical feminists from Ukraine that became internationally known for their provocative protest campaigns. The Swiss filmmaker Alain Margot’s specific take on the group is through the story of Oxana Shachko who is not only one of Femen’s co-founders, but also could be credited with invention of the topless form of protests and the general visual design of the movement. Both are very instrumental in the group’s eventual media success. Therefore, with such a focus, the film is in a most promising position to go in depth to reveal inner dynamics of the group. This promise has only partially been realized.

The film is structured around the geographic trajectory of Oxana’s life journey (and of the group as a whole), from Ukraine via neighboring Belarus and Russia to their eventual European emigration. The film opens with an introduction to the group via one of its protests at Ukraine’s General Prosecutor's office. The activists are campaigning against the raping and burning alive of a young girl. After this introduction, the film relocates to Khmel’nitsky, the origin place of the movement and Oxana’s birth place, to interview Oxana’s mother in her home environment. Unfortunately, no attempt is made to capture a sense of the city as a whole, or, as a matter of fact, of any other location in the film. The journey continues to Kiev, the place of the first protest campaign (also depicted in the film Ukraine is Not a Brothel (2013)) and the city where Oxana moved for some time. It is quite insightful to see her artistically chaotic apartment with Communist symbols on the wall mixed with Orthodox icon imagery. This is both Oxana’s place of abode, creative studio, and a shelter – for some reason, even members of the group surprisingly do not visit her there. The film does not discuss Oxana’s personal life, yet, she seems to have an elitist attitude toward “ordinary people” and even within the group there is a certain degree of autonomy. She is not engaged with the local social milieu or conducting any everyday chores, thus giving minimal opportunity to visualize what life is like in the region that very soon is to erupt.

Instead, the overall social context in the film is largely represented verbally, through interviews that include the oldest founder of the group, Anna Hutsol. The overall manifesto of fighting patriarchy in its three manifestations (in her words, dictatorship, sex industry, and religion) does not entirely correspond to actual actions of the group (they are more meaningful than theorizing anyway). While presenting the group’s actions, the film manages also to interview street spectators and this is where some diversity of opinions occur. A policeman who characteristically does not reveal his face, believes that Femen actions are repetitive yet the girls should be credited with being brave. In the end things escalate, yet for a very long time Ukrainian police retain a relaxed attitude towards the group and it seems to be one of the factors of their growth and success (that would not be possible in Russia and Belarus). Yet it is not clear if the group appreciates anything in Ukraine. Even the rare female politician Yulia Timoshenko is protested against with opinions that she “never fought for women rights or political prisoners, even when she was prime minister” and “even if she is a woman, we will never support her.”

The main body of the film is a chronologically organized presentation of the group’s actions and of Oxana’s role in them. For example, for an act at the zoo, she designs masks that imitate animals. For me, these are some of the best parts of the film allowing essentially a child and an artist to exist in someone who publicly is viewed as a fearless topless political activist. We see Oxana painting in the style of the canonical Orthodox icons (even if depicting topless girls). Her father turns to alcohol, and the family is held together by her mother. Browsing through her childhood photos, we learn that until 7th grade she was mostly painting icons and even planned to join the convent, yet after a period of philosophical explorations changed her mind. The film also includes interesting although brief discussion of the group’s finances. Funds are said to come from supporters’ donations while TV stations that often invite the group to appear, pay for their travels and sell the group’s artifacts though online shops. The role of Oxana in shaping the visual design and sex appeal of the group should not be minimized. In Paris, after an act in front of Eiffel Tower (“Muslim women, let’s get naked!”), we see Oxana in a museum contemplating paintings of topless women and claiming that getting naked matters for grabbing media attention. A photo session in cold weather follows, “we need to be on magazine covers”, “we need to be beautiful, sexy”. Not a surprise that during their another action (against corrupted paid political rallies in Ukraine) an old woman shouts “Whores!”

Eventually everything heightens and contrasts in the film intensify. Police start detaining Femen activists who also get riskier by travelling outside of Ukraine. In Belarus (“I am scared for the first time”) three activists (including Oxana) went missing and put through elaborate humiliation ordeals. The camera captures Oxana calming down in her apartment. It does not last long, and soon she is near Zurich’s international hockey federation headquarters protesting the planned championship in Belarus -- followed by images of a high heeled Oxana at a reception—followed by preparation for an act in Moscow against Putin where Oxana is detained for two weeks. Her apartment is raided by someone, allegedly police-related because the case is not investigated.

All that results in perhaps a turning point for the group: to support the Pussy Riot activists in Russia, Femen does something equally controversial and offensive to society – they use a chainsaw to cut down an Orthodox cross in Kiev above the place that soon will become the center of Maidan protests. It is a pity that the film makes no effort to discuss this fateful and divisive case. No attempt is made to get an explanation from group members or its reception by Ukrainian society. After that the group goes into exile in Europe and does not return to participate in what they were supposedly dreaming about – the political awakening of their homeland, Ukraine’s 2014 revolution. It seems that the filmmaker missed an opportunity here to elevate the film to higher level by focusing on the fundamental drama of the group—its essential failure in their homeland that the film happens to witness yet fails to analyze. A Femen training center in France is established, reminiscent of an army base, yet Oxana seems not to be part of it. We see Oxana briefly returning back to her homeland to say farewell despite facing criminal charges there. Alone on the train with distant landscapes passing by the window, she again reveals her ideas – they seem to lack focus and are more general than ever (“I want to wake up all the people sleeping in these houses, happy with their little piece of land and any old job… to make them rise up and help to change the world order”). Femen activists missed the 2104 revolt in Ukraine yet the revolt itself did not miss them.

Unfortunately, the film looks like an extended and ordered version of what is already available on YouTube in the form of various Femen videos. This is no doubt a handier and professional version enriched by exclusive “behind the scenes” footage of Femen acts. Such a deeper and more detailed examination of cases might be useful for educators. The film differentiates between the group members (who superficially may look similar to each other) by adding a “personal face” of one of the group’s founding members. It is Oxana who is the “I” in the film’s title, it is mostly her story. Yet I would argue that the story told is missing an opportunity to elevate the film to a higher level. There is a lack of a sense of transformation in Oxana’s personality in the film: both intellectually and emotionally, the film’s hero on the eve of womanhood seems to be the same throughout the entire film with no visible personal or artistic evolution substituted instead by a geographical journey (from Ukraine to Europe). There is a certain irony in that.

The film opens with a citation from Romanian philosopher and essayist Emil Cioran (1911-1995) that claims that women are “less balanced and therefore more complex”. Leaving this tone of favoritism aside, one may observe that the actual film demonstrates rather the opposite: the women in the film seems to be quite balanced (following Cioran’s logic, does that mean that they less complex?). To see this point, one may compare this film to Andrei Gryazev’s masterpiece Zavtra (Tomorrow, 2012) that also focuses on an activists-provocateur group (in Russia) that eventually evolved into the famous Pussy Riot. Gryazev’s film avoids sympathetic bias and fails to provide larger societal context yet manages to come exceptionally close to its subjects and trace their personal transformations. I am Femen seems to substitute that by a distant symbolic account of a geographical journey. Even if focused on non-conformists, this entertaining and important film seems to be paradoxically conformist in its uncritical and sympathetic form.