Gennadiy, known in costume as Jenna, is a performance artist in Russia who managed to escape to France obtaining asylum there fortunate enough not to have “fallen out of a window”, gunned down or to have consumed that FSB special plutonium tea.
You see Jenna is a queer that loves to parade about the streets of wherever she may be in outrageous costumes beautifully designed but scorned by Russian rednecks, security guards in supermarkets and those in the official Tsarist camp.
Jenna is from Magadan a dismal city of 137,000 known as a transit centre for political prisoners and forced labour in gold mines in the Stalinist era. He lives with his grandmother and grandfather who have difficulties understanding their grandson urging him to drop all the nonsense of his performance art and to get a good job by focusing on his education. Jenna endures a litany of criticism from his grandparents refusing to buckle in.
When he is not parading the streets and subways with his delightfully outlandish outfits he is making Tik Tok videos of his performance art. He is not welcome within officialdom but in the midst of an anti-war demonstration a small crowd follows him hurling insults on fascist Putin and praising opposition figure Navalny before he was murdered by the FSB.
In Moscow he attends cosmetic college until he is expelled for participating in a demonstration critical of Tsar Putin. In footage of an anti-war demonstration, we watch police haul off demonstrators and smacking them with truncheons. These are times when the Tsar has enacted legislation making LGBTQ status more or less illegal as well as any criticism of the war effort which we hear Tsar Putin on television confidently state will shortly be won as Russia defeats Ukrainian genocide of Russians.
Motto of the story Russia, in true Tsarist White Russian tradition, has devolved in a backwards fashion crushing all political opposition and those like Jenna whose appearance, sexual orientation and attitudes don’t fit in the good and obedient Russian mould.
Nice to know Jenna is safe in Paris where he feels like a human being.
Directed by Agniia Galdanova.
The film will be playing in theatres 14June2024 and available on demand.
RKS 2024 Film Rating 87/100.
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 