Queens of Heart: Community Therapists in Drag (2006)

Сюжет кино: I tend to avoid movies about drag performance because they so often try to scintillate or romanticize under the guise of serious documentary inquiry. Not so for Queens of Heart. This is an intellectually honest and simultaneously witty account of the role that drag performance plays in communities - in particular for audiences who are torn between their own sexual needs (regardless of sexual orientation) and the display rules imposed on them by their religious norms. The documentary manages to link the viewer emotionally to both, performers and audiences, but also provokes a lot of thought about how judgmental people are - oneself included - without becoming didactic. Queens of Heart also pulls of another trick: it can be viewed by non-academic audiences for an entirely informative and satisfying experience; but it also provides enough psychological and/or political theory that the academic types can fry their brains for days. And have I mentioned the music? There is some new and truly amazing stuff in there next to the old warhorses. In sum: it's a documentary well worth your time.