Pussy Riot 'one of the most important documentaries of the year'

John Anderson at Indiewire:

“Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer” may well be the most important doc of the year, despite the fact that its directors never quite get to the point of what the alleged “crimes” were all about: Namely, Vladimir Putin’s co-opting of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the church’s Stockholm Syndrome approach to religious autonomy. That was why Pussy Riot -- Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, dressed in pastels and ski masks -- seized the stage, i.e. the altar, of Moscow’s historic Christ the Saviour Cathedral Feb. 21, 2012, writhing, howling vulgarities and generally outraging the pious security personnel, who asked themselves what Jesus would do, and promptly assaulted the band.

Still, directors Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin make spectacular use of Russian’s invasive paparazzi-style media freedoms on behalf of their movie, and create of a girl group that might not be the best band in the world, but is certainly the bravest.

What Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich did was an act of conceptual art and political protest against Kirill I, the primate of Russia, who is comfortably in bed with Putin, not that he likely has a lot of choice. Nevertheless, it’s a disgraceful situation, considering how the ROC managed to survive 70 years of atheistic Communism, only to bend over for the same midget bureaucrat who is largely responsible, at the moment, for the fact that Syrians are slaughtering each other.

However: “Pussy Riot” the movie is less interested in the history than the moment. It’s a kinetic, music-driven portrait, showing its subjects defiant in the face of the charges against them, and the farcical trial they’re made to sit through.

"Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer" debuts on HBO on June 10.