Panorama Dokumente - review - VULVA 3.0 by Claudia Richarz and Ulrike Zimmermann
Everything you've always wanted to know about the vagina. Vulva 3.0 is a very strange experience. It’s hard to imagine such a human and complete approach when dealing with the subject of any kind of genitalia. Cinematically speaking, it’s almost impossible to find a similar representation, and almost unthinkable that a documentary entirely dedicated to the vulva would be so warm and affectionate whilst incredibly informative. Even the straight male demographic watching this film will be surprised how a film entirely dedicated to it would be so un-pornographic. That, is actually the joke of it all. Indeed, this documentary by Richarz and Zimmerman is precisely the pussy without the porn.
Airbrushed, deformed, re-styled and abused, it has been constantly mistreated by media but even by humanity as a whole. This is as much true when we see a publicist photoshop his way through an endless number of pictures, when we see a woman on the operating table of a plastic surgeon or when we hear about the unspoken subject of female genitalia. Through interviews and a creative approach to the issue, an original take on a taboo topic is created, and examined thoroughly with a three hundred and sixty approach.
The filmmakers purposely mix giggles with shocks, which lead up to an unbearable – although blurred – focus on a convention dedicated to vaginal plastic surgery. There is no focused meaning. Vulva 3.0 aims to provide a complete picture, which also reveals a thing that is not often talked about, and perhaps the most ‘shocking’ revelation of the work – females have a pussy-phobia. It’s a well-known fact that males are obsessed by penis size, but never really revealed that labia length and overall form and shape affected by media representation of the “perfect vagina” should ever have been such a problem.
In this sense, the most compelling human element of this documentary can be found in its female empowerment message and solidarity among women. In this sense, Vulva 3.0 is as much universal, relevant and representation as it is informal and practical. The vagina is the ultimate symbol of women and femininity, and this is its manifesto.
