Pussy Riot — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, dressed in pastels and ski masks — seized the stage of Moscow’s historic Christ the Savior Cathedral on February 21, 2012, writhing, howling vulgarities and generally outraging the pious security personnel, who promptly assaulted the band. What these women did was an act of conceptual art and political protest.  The movie is 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.  It portrays the performance as an act of intellectual pranksterism but is clear about the meaning of the official response: a profound insecurity on the part of the Putin regime.  What would have been an amusing but ultimately forgettable gesture of protest has been blown up by Putin into an international scandal that serves as a symbol of political oppression and creeping government intrusion.