Venus Boyz

An utterly fascinating, beautifully crafted exploration of the world of drag kings -- women who dress, perform and/or live as men.

Baur's doc earnestly -- if not altogether adroitly -- examines masculinity as a performance, demonstrating that biology is not destiny.

It is clear that these individuals have exercised considerable courage and determination to sort out their sexual natures and to be true to them. They have the sturdy sense of human survivors, and in Venus Boyz Baur regards them with compassion and dignity.

This provocative, at times languid, documentary from German experimental filmmaker Gabriel Baur is something of travelogue through this unexplored frontier, a mixed-up, shook-up borderland where nothing, especially not an individual's gender, should be ever be taken for granted.

It's not uninteresting, but so much footage is given over to earnest discussion of sexual politics that the overall effect is like sitting through a semester's worth of transgender studies.

Empty details pile up, awful performance art is doled out, talking heads are intermittently identified, and the late Brandon Teena is evoked to little real purpose.

Becomes hard going the longer Baur stretches out the parade of narcissists, all spouting received wisdom, cultural clichés, and bad poetry.