I've Only Just Begun
2012 · 6m · Finland
Directed by Elias Koskimies
Genres: experimental, LGBTQ+, musical
Tones: dark, provocative, theatrical
A music film protesting anti-LGBT sentiment: Venuz Vulgar travels with an entourage to St. Petersburg to free imprisoned friends after Russia's "homosexual propaganda" law.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A queer protest film that actually *uses* the musical form as a weapon instead of decorating a message with songs—Venuz Vulgar as a drag liberation figure storming St. Petersburg in 2012 is precisely the kind of uncompromising, genre-colliding provocation that makes people uncomfortable, which is exactly when you know it's working.
Koskimies situates this work firmly in a lineage of political musical cinema and experimental video art, though the marriage of theatrical camp and documentary urgency occasionally strains against itself; the formal ambition outpaces the execution.
The decision to center Venuz Vulgar's physical presence—how the body moves through space as an act of defiance rather than narrative—is what transforms this from agitprop into something genuinely unsettling and alive.
Reviews
With its frigid themes of Orthodox Christian imagery and dank, misty forests, the Finnish director Elias Koskimies (who bills himself as "E" in the credits) recently released "I've Only Just Begun," a strangely beautiful "music film" that highlights the struggle of LGBT discrimination in Russia and