Drag shouldn’t be — or no less than needn’t be — political, not to mention radical in its politics. However when such artistry is focused by politicians and insurance policies that purpose to make it disappear from public view altogether (whether or not within the identify of nation or church or kids or any mixture thereof), drag artists are left with little recourse than to make their very own our bodies and our bodies of labor stand for one thing. In Agniia Galdanova’s fabulous, if sobering, documentary “Queendom,” audiences are known as to witness the begrudging radicalization of Jenna Marvin. The younger queer nonbinary drag artist would fairly be designing and showcasing her work with little fear. But at each flip, the more and more violent anti-LGBT insurance policies of Putin’s Russia push her to search out a way out and thru.

A lithe younger Russian with no hair on her head and no eyebrows to talk of has painted her complete head pearl white. She’s additionally painted on a number of clown-like black and white thrives on her face (teardrop outlines across the eyes, daring black traces across the contour of the mouth). With a frilled white collar, an identical corset, a pair of black leather-based boots and gloves (and a classy eggshell coat for heat), she units out on her day. That first entails doing an impromptu photoshoot amid the snowy, icy landscapes that encompass her and, later, going grocery purchasing. Solely, as these first scenes in “Queendom” clarify, such a easy and in any other case extraordinary day is made something however when Jenna is requested to depart the grocery retailer.

The incongruity of such a scene (two officers assert they’re not kicking Jenna out however truly simply asking her to depart since her outfit is “disturbing the peace”) forcefully locations audiences squarely within the untenable scenario Jenna can not escape. She is simply attempting to stay her life. However such a life is changing into more and more unimaginable to maintain, for Jenna is now in rural Russia within the wintry Siberian city of Magadan. She’s not in Moscow, anymore, a metropolis that had at first appeared extra open to Jenna’s drag and but which proved simply as inhospitable when her political activism — public, defiant, unabashedly queer and avant-garde — made it so she needed to transfer again in together with her grandparents (who can not assist however additional enrage their beloved grandkid by asking her to tamp down their very assured sense of self).

“Every time I am going out in character, I’m on prime of the world,” Jenna tells the digicam. “Nobody, even right here in Russia, can scare me.” It’s a robust sentiment which feels according to the creatures Jenna turns into by way of make-up, wigs and creative apparel. At instances, Jenna goes out in public wanting like an alien being who befuddles everybody round her, particularly when she crawls by means of the ground of the subway trains or merely saunters down the grocery aisle. At others, all lined in golden foil, she calls up a way of a void that makes the amusement park round her really feel all of the extra empty and miserable. If the world is to see and deal with her as an “different,” Jenna’s public efficiency artwork appears intent as a substitute on discovering power in such visibility. That’s the work that’s garnered her near 200,000 followers on Instagram alone.

However the gritted resilience Jenna’s outfits and performances so exalt (prickly photos meant to spook and unsettle) isn’t all there may be. Sure, “Queendom” captures placing scenes whereby Jenna (carrying little else however barbed wire or adorned with a coral-like wig) showcases the sheer breadth of her abilities. However Galdanova’s present right here lies not simply in revealing Jenna’s extra susceptible moments — these painful telephone calls together with her grandparents, frantic moments earlier than key visa appointments and tearful episodes following hateful bodily assaults — however in refusing to see them as indifferent from the very armored masks Jenna wears on any given day. 

That’s why arguably one of the vital affecting scenes within the movie comes when a type of singular shoots meant to make a spectacle of one among Jenna’s outfits (a darkish bodysuit with lengthy spindly fingers and an identical insectile headpiece) all however breaks aside. Toke Brorson Odin and Damien Vandesande’s eerie digital music scores the soundless screams Jenna expels in agony as she writhes across the sandy desolate floor and violently frolics in a close-by puddle. The extra Jenna exhausts herself, the extra the second of elegant magnificence turns into one among intense, harrowing ache. It’s tiring to be so resilient. But that’s all she will ever do amid a world that may fairly silence her.

“Queendom” is each a strong portrait of a queer artist in addition to a sly name to arms. By extension, it additionally serves for instance of how one and the opposite aren’t so simply uncoupled. Jenna’s activism is tied to her artistry exactly as a result of her very existence is a political goal. In selecting to stay defiantly, and to showcase her personal journey for your entire world to see, Jenna has paved a approach for herself to search out in her outré drag artwork a method to reshape the world so she gained’t ever need to preserve hiding. Not in order that she gained’t stand out however so she gained’t need to consistently have to face up.