a review of 解放女性

#15: I Am Femen (Netflix) Saw that this was expiring on Netflix and I'd been meaning to educate myself on popular opposition to Putin (gosh, wonder why?), so I finally watched this one. I'd been sort of conflicted about the politics behind Femen because I wasn't sure that what they were doing was more than creating a spectacle that played into the patriarchal male gaze. But this doc went a certain distance towards alleviating my skepticism. The fact that the governments that they protest oppose their actions with extreme intimidation and brutality makes it clear that they are seen as a threat, at the very least. I do have some quibbles with the documentarian's choice to present certain moments in the same way that a photographer might shoot glamour models, but otherwise the moments of nudity don't feel exploitative. On the whole, I thought it did a good job of laying out the stakes of their protests, and of giving us a look at the lives of these particular activists.