I didn't have a full Moscow film programme in front of writing my past post. So here is some more detail about what to watch for the Russian/Soviet film fan:
1) For me the one film of the festival that I'm most excited by has got to be Kira Muratova's Вечное Возращение (Eternal Homecoming)- shown at the Rome Film festival last year, any Muratova film is a crime to miss and this looks like to be no exception.
2) As I mentioned in my previous post, the competition programme has three films. Lopushansky is one of those film directors who never quite get talked about enough and can never be quite placed and his film РОЛЬ (The Role) about an actor in the Soviet 1920s who takes on someone else's identity has got to be the most awaited of the three films in competition:
Anton Rozenberg's СКОЛЬЖЕНИЕ(Slide) also looks interesting as a debut that has received no state financing. About a group of police investigators wallowed in criminal activities whose scheme starts to fail starts to analyse the disintegration of this group. Whether the film will show itself to be a deeper and more convincing film about police investigators than Yuri Bykov's film shown at Kinotavr remains to be seen but one can only hope that Rozneberg will prove to be a debutant in Russian cinema who will last. What one will make of Andrey Bogatyryov's film Иуда (Judas)- again by a relative newcomer to the Russian film industry remains to be seen.
3) If the competition films prove disappointing, then it is to be hoped that the legendary Irakli Kvirikadze will lift spirits with his Распутин (Rasputin). Even though a film starring Gerard Depardieu in the lead role doesn't always inspire many nowadays as much as before. The acting ensemble is impressive (Vladimir Mashkov, Ksenia Rappoport, Filipp Yankovsky and Anna Mikhalkova among others) but I'd remain sceptical of the idea that this film can match Klimov's classic film. Let's hope that Kvirikadze has returned to previous form.
4) If these films disappoint at least the Balabanov retrospective won't. I'm hoping to get to see those films which I haven't seen on a big screen yet, including of course his final film Я Тоже Хочу (Me too). If anyone is still in doubt about the importance of watching Balabanov, they should go straight to the blog on Balabanov kept by Florian Weinhold and read the wonderful analysis by Anna Nieman of Balabanov published in the latest edition of Kino Kultura.
Pyotr Todorovsky (who also died recently) will be honoured with a screening of his film Верность (Faithfulness).
5. One of the films that interests me the most form the Russian Trace programme is a film by Spanish director, Valenti Figueres, entitled The K. Effect, Stalin's editor. The blurb runs as follows: This is a curious and amazing story of Maxime Stransky, childhood friendof Sergei Eisenstein, actor in 1920 Moscow and an adventurer of the revolution, a counterfeiter and Hollywood producer- Stalin's film editor. His story is narrated through his amateur footage and personal home movies.
6. Gabriele Salvatores's Siberian Education starring John Malkovich and based on a disputed account of the strange childhood of Russian emigre and former criminal urka now living in Italy, Nikolai Lilin, is a film that I'm curious to watch. Having read two of Lilin's books in Italian I'm, to say the least sceptical, of the biographical bases of his accounts but nonetheless I don't want to miss the chance to watch the film (interestingly in the Moscow programme Lilin is not credited as being one of the scriptwriters):
7. A small retrospective on films about the battle of Stalingrad will also be on my list of things to watch. Seeing the great actor Smokutonovsky in the film Солдаты(Soldiers) will be a treat, but so will other Soviet films by Aleksandr Stolper and Vladimir Petrov. However, Grigory Chukhrai's film Память (Memory) of edited documentary footage is the one indispensable film to watch.
8. A small section dedicated to the Olympic Movement includes Yuri Ozerov's О Спорт! Ты - Мир! (Oh Sport, you are peace!)- a documentary on the 1980 Olympics with animated fragments. This film surely won't compare to some of the other offerings in this section includes Kon Ichikawa's mythical film on the Tokyo Olympics. All the same it will be a pleasure to watch this film (hopefully from a 35mm copy), something impossible otherwise.
9. The Cine Fantom programme is a rather full one but the highlight is surely the remake of Volga, Volga by Pavel Labazov and Andrey Silvestrov starring the recently deceased artist Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro. Billed the oddest remake in the history of cinema, this particular film surely shouldn't be missed.
10. Finally, the only Russian film in the documentary competition by Mumin Shakirov entitled ХОЛОКОСТ- КЛЕЙ ДЛЯ ОБОЕВ? (Holocaust: It’s Wallpaper Paste?) is another film to watch for the Russian film buff. The answer to a question in a quiz programme which gives the film the title shocked many Russians and this follow up documentary which takes the Karatygin sisters to Auschwitz to recount what the Holocaust really was has a serious intent. One must wait to see how powerful and innovative a documentary it is likely to be.
So these are the ten choices for the Russian film buff. It represents only a minor section of the whole film festival (and I'll try to write about that side of it on another blog and for a couple of film journals. Films for Portugal, Holland, Korea, as well as the Czech Republics New Wave are given individual section. Bertolucci, Costa Gavras, Ursula Meier are given individual retrospectives. Ulrich Seidl Paradise trilogy is showing. And so on and so forth and apart from all of this there is the customary Russian Programme showing at Dom Kino. I haven't even begun to describe the details of this...
Festival season in Russia and former Soviet satellite countries has most definitely begun. After the Kinotavr festival in Sochi (the major showcase of national cinema) came the Zerkalo (Mirror) Tarkovsky festival in the Ivanovo region. A festival dedicated to the name and legacy of one of Russia's greatest ever film directors this year on its seventh festival it was possible to celebrate the return of the Tarkovsky archive to the region of Tarkovsky's birth. Films dedicated to Tarkovsky, film directors influenced by Tarkovsky as well as a whole host of other events have begun slowly to build up the reputation of this film festival. It may well serve as an example to others. There has been some talk of an Elem Klimov festival in Volgograd and one can only hope that this idea gets off the ground as it will surely recover the reputation and demonstrate the versatility of another truly great Soviet film director. Too little is known of Klimov in the west outside of his last film Иди и Смотри (Come and See), and even in Russia his reputation is mainly built on this last film alongside his first film Добро пожаловать, или Посторонним вход воспрещён (Welcome, or No Trespassing). The time surely has come to try and build these festival-bridges between the giants of the past and contemporary film.
The most established film festival- the Moscow International Film Festival- begins this Thursday. It is by far the largest festival and remains in terms of classification at least the major festival. Whether its reputation as a festival showcase for international brilliance can be salvaged is in doubt for. Although the return of Andrei Plakhov to the festival team can only be a good sign. He has offered a very sincere and objective account of the festival in an interview published today in Novaya Gazeta with its correspondent Larisa Maliukova. He admits that the main international festival for Eastern European film is Karlovy Vary (it managed to build up its reputation at a time when Moscow slowly lost its role and direction).
Nonetheless, Moscow really does manage to make up for in eclecticism what it all too often lacks in its competition programme. And this year there are some promising signs. A very strong Portuguese and Dutch section of films should have much to offer as should a Prague Spring dedicated to the memory of Galina Kopaneva, a bilingual Czech and Russian film critic who died late last year. Both Costa Gravas and Bernardo Bertolucci are being honoured with retrospectives as is the Franco-Swiss director Ursula Meier. The death of Alexei Balabanov a month ago meant that failing to honour his memory could only have been seen as an affront after the disattention that many large festivals such as Cannes showed him.
Russian cinema is not central to this festival but nonetheless three Russian films are in the competition programme. Konstantin Lopushanky's film РОЛЬ (The Role). Lopushansky like Sokurov was close in some ways to Tarkovsky (working with him on Stalker). Yet for some reason Sokurov has travelled while Lopushansky has not. Yet Lopushansky is surely deserving of a more international reputation than he has hitherto gained. Not having made a full-length feature work since his 2006 Strugatsky adaptation Гадкие лебеди(The Ugly Swans), his new film surely deserves attention. Anton Rozenberg, a newcomer to Russian cinema, has his СКОЛЬЖЕНИЕ (Slide) entered into the main competition. A film that received no state finance one can only await this thriller with curiosity. Andrey Bogatyryov has adpated Leonid Andreev's tale of Judas Iscariot to the screen. Whether his ИУДА (Judas) will go beyond last years finely made and scripted but none too radical Орда (The Horde) directed by Andrei Proshkin and scripted by Yuri Arabov remains to be seen. Nonetheless, the religious theme seems to be a constant in recent years.
Cine Fantom also has a section of its own and will be showing a retrospective of films in which the recently deceased artist Vladimir Mamyshev-Monroe was involved. Cine Fantom's large programme seems to show that underground cinema is still far from dead in Russia. Whether it will have new surprises in store remains to be seen. One of the documentary films in competition is Mumin Shakirov's ХОЛОКОСТ- КЛЕЙ ДЛЯ ОБОЕВ? (Holocaust: It’s Wallpaper Paste?) about two sisters who gained fame (or rather notoriety) for their answer in a rather primitive quiz show. The film is the story of the journalists decision to take them on a trip to Auschwitz.
Russian entries in other programmes seem to be rather thin on the ground. Although there is a section dedicated to films about the great ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. The Moscow Business Square is the large business platform where co-production forums will be visited by hundreds of producers. The emphasis this year is on a number of countries from South Korea, China as well as having a day dedicated to documentary film.
The amount
of events outside the main competition at the Kinotavr Film Festival don’t
match those of Moscow’s film Festival but there was nonetheless the odd
surprise in store for the viewer. In terms of retrospectives one can only speak
of one significant one – this being the retrospective dedicated to Soviet era war
films curated by Sergei Lavrentiev. The choices are of a number of genuine
classics by masters of Soviet cinema from Tarkovsky to German and not ignoring
Bondarchuk seniors lesser but still powerful film СудьбаЧеловека(The fate of a man). With limited time to get to many
of these films, I have no regrets in choosing the surprisingly surreal film ВосточныйКоридор(The Eastern Passage) as the one film
which it would have been a crime to miss in this retrospective. Valentin
Vinogradov was a Soviet director who, in spite of having numerous obstacles put
in his way, was more of a believer in the Soviet system than a dissident. This
film is, arguably, his masterpiece and one of the freshest discoveries to have
been made in recent years. I also had no regrets in choosing to rewatch Vadim
Abdrashitov’s ОстановитеПотапова(Stop
Potapov). A diploma film which decades later seems fresh and brings forth a
certain melancholy nostalgia at how certain films now are no longer possible.
Based on a story by Gorin, the film is a lyrical portrait of the ‘useless man’.
Potapov, reminiscent of Otar Ioselliani’s protagonist in There Lived a Thrush,
becomes through Abdrashitov’s masterful direction, suffused with a kind of
conformist spirit which it is hard to portray with such lightness of touch.
Two leading
film historians Evgeny Margolit and Marianna Kireeva held a class on the
origins popular hits and heroes of Soviet cinema. In fact through the rather
insistent interventions of one member of the audience it was turned into a
discussion of modern Russian cinema. However, both Margolit and Kireeva
accented how the truly popular hits of cinema arose spontaneously and without
any directives. All the Soviet examples Chapaev, the Maxim character of
Kozintsev and Trauberg’s trilogy and the protagonists of Donskoy’s Радуга(Rainbow) arose in spite of and not because of directions
from above. An extreme example of this was Nikolai Ekk’s Путевкакжизни(A Voucher for Life) which was, in
terms of its foreign audience the greatest hit in Soviet film history (as well
as a national hit). And yet this was a film that was strongly resisted by the
film hierarchy of its time. Margolit and Kireeva went on to mention the severe
criticism that films from the studio Mezhrabpom-Rus’ faced throughout the 1920s
and into the 1930s. Yet it was this studio that produced the truly popular
cinema of its time including that of Protazanov. There were some fascinating
moments and Margolit’s drawing links to the influence of Fantomas even to such
a film as Mikhail Romm’s ЛенинвОктябре(Lenin
in October) is the kind of suggestive discovery that one comes to expect from
one of Russia’s greatest film scholars. Another interesting point that emerged
during the discussion was how Danelia’s Афония(Afoniya) was the victor of a screen writing
competition about the working class.
Evgeny Margolit.
The question
that arose in the course of the lecture about Balabanov’s film Брат(Brother) led to Margolit suggesting
that there was a thread that led from earlier Soviet characters through to
Daniel Bagrov. So that Chapaev, Voland, Bender, Detochkin and Bagrov are part
of one and the same archetype. Whether this thread has been broken and whether
a repeat of Balabanov’s feat will be repeated was discussed. For Margolit and
Kireeva Balabanov’s film was produced because of a number of circumstances all
came together. It was the last period in which these circumstances have
favoured such a possibility. Margolit sees some continuity in Detochkin’s film Деточкиand yet there is almost no
distribution for this film at all (in spite of it being a popular rather than
art house film). Interestingly both Margolit and Kireeva were among the few
scholars and critics at the time to acknowledge the power and significance of
Balabanov’s film for Russian cinema. Balabanov’s film was at the receiving end
of just the same hostile criticism that the other Soviet films that they
mentioned above.
Other films
mentioned by Margolit of the past decade were Abdrashitov’s last film МагнитныеБуры(Magentic Storms), Melikian’s Русалка( Mermaid) and some of Andrei
Gryazev’s early documentary films. Another neglected name was Dmitry
Svetozarov. Much of the prepared lecture had to be abandoned by the rather
insistent intent of one member of the audience to bring contemporary issues
into the forefront (whereas what had been prepared was a more historical look
at popular Soviet cinema). Nonetheless in spite of this, Margolit and Kireeva
managed to produce a wealth of fascinating observations to their talk.
On the
Friday of the festival a large round table on ‘How to Help Russian Cinema?’ was
held, chaired by Russia’s film critic Andrey Plakhov. Many leading lights of
the Russian film industry were present from many different areas of operations.
Much of the discussion was about the complex issue of state support. Is it
necessary and how to use it (without being used by the state). Anton Dolin, a
film critic, made a provocative suggestion of refusing all state support and
trying to get the industry to swim by itself. Most speakers seemed to feel that
this was impossible although Victor Matizen argued that the dependence on
government funding forced the film industry to act in a schizophrenic way. The
film director Khotinenko argued for his idea of having a Year of the Debut-
only in this way could the film industry encourage new blood into the industry.
Vitaly Mansky talked of the absurdity of the state support in documentary film
where nearly all the funds go to finance films that nobody ever gets to see
(and which are very badly produced). Those documentaries which do have success
are only ever extremely rarely given any state funding. Another point was made
as to how Russian film shouldn’t be compared to the American film industry with
which it has nothing in common but rather to the Brazilian film industry. The
quantity of viewers and the number of films made are somewhat similar.
Vyacheslav Smyrov spoke about how there was not one model of cinema and that
the Soviet model was in a way a more open model than the present model because
as well as a state component it also had a social component to it. And the
general dialogue between cinema and society that was present in the Soviet
times has been lost. Here he mentioned Margolit’s and Kireeva’s lecture and how
some of the leading films of the late Soviet period were produced through
script writing competitions. As well as Danelia’s film mentioned above, the
Oscar winner Москваслезамневерит(Moscow
doesn’t believe in tears) was also produced this way. Some suggestions were
made by Joel Shapron and Nancy Condee as to how things were done in France (how
the state supports the whole variety of film) and America (the importance of
film in education and the university film clubs and discussion around film as
part of a university education). Rodniansky emphasised how Russian cinema is
orientated only towards its own market and not any others. Infact, as Andrey Plakhov mentioned in his
introduction there have been no international hits since Zviagintsev’s Елена (Elena) or Sokurov’s Фауст(Faust). Interestingly an earlier talk on
international co-productions was reported to have been one of the least
attended sessions of this festival and the figures of actual co-productions are
exceedingly depressing.
All in all
the round table made for some depressing listening. Whether this gloomy picture
reflects reality or a certain tendency to look more on the dark side of things
is a question to be considered. Nonetheless, one can also hear these statements
in many other countries from Italy to the UK and, perhaps, the gloom
surrounding cinema’s future is not merely a Russian issue. Equally gloomy was a
round table discussion on cinema on television which came to the conclusion
that no quality cinema was ever likely to reach large audiences in contemporary
circumstances.
Gennadi Sidorov
One of the
special screenings was devoted to the last film made by Gennadi Sidorov (but,
alas, he was unable to edit the film before his untimely death). An adaptation
of M. Ageev’s (a pseudonym of philologist and translator Mark Levi) cult
underground émigré classic РомансКокаином(Novel with Cocaine), it transferred the
story to the Moscow of the present time. Uneven but atmospheric this film
curiosity nevertheless demonstrates what a lost talent Sidorov could have been
for Russian cinema. In his lifetime Sidorov played many other roles in film
other than director of movies but on the basis of this film if he had
concentrated his talents on filming more, recent Russian cinema would have been
all the richer for it.
Some of the film trailers that were on show at Kinotavr Film Festival. In this order:
Vitaly Mansky Труба Pipeline
Yuri Bykov Майор (The Major)
Dmitry Turin Жажда (Thirst)
Taisia Igumentseva Отдать Концы (Bite the Dust)
Yusup Razykov Стыд (Shame)
Alexei Fedorchenko Небесные жены луговых мари (Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari)
Natasha Merkulova and Alexey Chupov Интимные Места (Intimate Parts)
Andrei Stempkovsky Разносчик (The Delivery Guy)
Aleksander Veledinsky Географ глобус пропил (The Geographer Drank His Globe Away).
I am delighted to give space to Florian Weinhold and a piece of his which helps to explain the approach of his forthcoming book on Alexei Balabanov. Florian introduces himself below and has a few words to say about his forthcoming book. The main piece article that follows is an exploration of the importance of a film genre approach when studying Balabanov and by extension Russian film in general (here he concentrates on exploring this with regard to Balabanov's most well-known film Брат (Brother). Florian's book promises to be a breakthrough in setting Balabanov in this context and the first major English-language study of this recently departed film-maker whose place in post-Soviet film can not be under-estimated. Anyway here is the guest post. Enjoy!
On Florian Weinhold:
Florian Weinhold, human, father, agnostic, anti-authoritarian
freethinker with a blue collar heart, animal and tree lover, Aleksei Balabanov
fan, yet unpublished board game developer and writer of fiction.
He was born in the East German town of Frankfurt/Oder. When
the Berlin wall came down, Florian did not join the herds of the banana and,
ultimately, unemployment or other benefits-grabbing gravediggers of their
former homeland. But he also did and does not join the pointlessly
ostalgic/eastalgic. The takeover, or reunification, happened and the grass is
not greener, he knows. Living in two democracies - East and West - has been bad
for Florian's ideological blinkers: they were nipped in the bud during his late
teens and failed the acid test of the new Germany and Europe, shrivelled and
conked out.
In 2001, Florian completed his B.A. (Hons.) Linguistics
and Russian at The University of Manchester with a first degree (distinction in
spoken Russian). After vegetating on the job market for a bit, he got his hands
on one out of two postgraduate scholarships from The University of Manchester
and somehow received a distinction for his M.A. thesis. Then, he killed some
more time on the job market, until he received an AHRC scholarship in 2007,
which enabled him to write a first-class PhD thesis on the wonderful films by
the brilliant, enigmatic director-auteur Alexei Balabanov.
Blessed with a natural curiosity, Florian is now
tiptoeing to see what comes next.
On Path of Blood:
We think watching
movies is fun and easy: suspend your disbelief, enter the dream world of cinema
and escape. But when we try to talk about films we often falter: 'It's kind of
a gangster film... no, more like an action thriller... a Western... an art
film, but it's different, because...' - and then we are stuck.
Whether you are at
school or university, a lecturer, secretary or globetrotting film buff, Path of Blood gives you a solid
understanding of genre film through the popular crime movies of the enigmatic
Russian director Aleksei Balabanov.
Being the first book-length study dedicated to Aleksei
Balabanov's work, Path of Blood uses
the prism of genre to focus on representations of Russia, America, the
Caucasus, Ukraine and Western Europe. As a result, the book demonstrates that
the genre method can successfully be applied to Russian narrative film. It,
moreover, lays bare Balabanov's rejection of a clear-cut post-Soviet identity
and his problematisation of dominant Russian ideologies and thus brings a
corrective to previous writings on his films.
Aleksei
Balabanov, Brother, Film Genre and Path of Blood
Pamphlet,
Analysis, Method, Retrospection and Giveaways
Balabanov is dead. But has his death silenced the voices of his detractors? (I am not merely speaking of taste; please, understand!) Or are there still some in desperate need of making their name by saying that 'Balabanov is dead to me!'?
Although another master of Soviet/Russian cinema has passed away - also Tarkovsky is dead and only Muratova remains of the 'Holy Trinity' - he is not dead to me. His voice speaks loud and I shall do my part in clarifying his films' positions, perspectives and approaches.
Over the next few pages, I shall give an overview of my approach to Aleksei Balabanov's Zeitgeist genre films, as I like to call them. I explain what I mean by film genre and genre film, always taking recourse to Balabanov's work for examples. Here and there, I pick a bone with previous misuses of the concepts of genre and also of specific genres. But I strain to explain, i.e. do the opposite and clarify in bearable detail how I approached Balabanov's genre films and why I did so.
My particular approach in Path of Blood encompasses not only Aleksei Balabanov's Zeitgeist genre films but it applies also to all other films with a narrative dimension, with different degrees of efficacy, of course. My approach regards genre as cinema’s principal organiser and it can be applied to both genre movies and art house films as well as the whole spectrum of cinema that connects these two poles. A strictly bipartite concept of cinema - if and when uncritically applied - remains nonsensical and therefore untenable. To be sure, so-called genre movies can sometimes be art and so-called art house films can happen to be unwatchable trash. Both form only two distant poles of the film spectrum.
To jump in headlong, allowing for the primarily visual character of the medium, a film’s genre is recognisable from its iconography, its genre-typical themes, its characterisations, its plots, and its use of certain (meta-) cinematic devices and techniques indicative of its ideological/cultural leanings. Genre film theory is inherently linked to the concept of intertextuality (the corpora constituting a genre) and allusion (direct references to particular members of those corpora). Genre theory is particularly suited to investigations of cinema’s self/other representations because of its attention to reassuring rules and expectations (and thus to identifications and prejudices). It recognises that narrative films ‘through repetition and variation, tell familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar situations’ and that they reflect the contemporary Zeitgeist. In Path of Blood I note that Zeitgeist means ‘spirit of the time’ and refers to the ideas and concepts prevalent in a cultural space during a particular period. Zeitgeist films, moreover, I argue, actively engage with, rather than passively reflect, these ideas, which are linked to ideology via their expression in myths, cultural tropes and self/other representations.
But I do not pretend to have advanced genre theory per se by any degree. In Path of Blood I simply use the theories already developed by eminent scholars in film studies and establish a framework. The paradigm that I set up from all those different writings (please, see bibliography of Path of Blood), however, is original in its construction. I designed it with view of introducing film genre studies to the field of Russian cinema and for the specific purpose of analysing filmic representations, in general; be they representations of, for example, gender, ethnicity, different age groups or those of different socio-economic strata. My other yet related main concern is to provide a tool for the analysis of myths, stereotypes and ideology, which are obviously linked with cinematic representations. Last but not least, each chapter in Path of Blood provides necessary detailed discussion of the particular film genres used by me in these films investigated. So, after reading the chapter on Brother, for example, my readers will not only be able to put the gangster label to it - which, alas!, is and was too easily done - but they shall also come away from the reading as experts on the gangster genre, the neo-noir mode and their allegorical/parabolic potential.
Once, I was accused of arbitrarily selecting whatever tool suited my own preconceived interpretations - a charge which I rejected vehemently - but, in the end, I was able to convince my admonisher during my viva voce (the final exam of a PhD). Who laughs last...
Since, as I claim in concert with some experts on film genre, genre films reflect or refract the contemporary Zeitgeist and, moreover, are about situations, characters and stories familiar to us, I initially place them in a broad socio-historical and cultural context, which (the circle closes!) they represent one way or another. I spend a few words on the filmmaker, Aleksei Balabanov, who developed from highly praised young auteur in the early nineties to a somewhat feared and hated black sheep of the aesthetic regime, only half a decade on. Honestly, I find it unsurprising that he embraced the gangster so wholeheartedly but I refrain from writing about his fantasies, as I fear I would give away too many of my own. Deconstructing Aleksei is the title I recommend to another ambitious PhD student.
As a PhD student I felt I would have done myself serious harm had I then stated the following: in my opinion, those critics and academics who vilified Balabanov, Brother, etc. are guilty. They are guilty of handing the meaning of these films over to certain right wing nationalist fans of the young killer, Danila, an impressive screen character played by a wonderful charismatic actor (RIP Sergei Bodrov Jr.). Both sides, one euphorically and the other one often dismally-spitefully agreed that Balabanov was a nationalist filmmaker. Ok, I let it rest. Almost. Only two more things, I do not regard all those thousands of disillusioned Russian youths who became fans of the Brother films and Balabanov in the late 1990s nationalists. And, furthermore, as much as I like the character, I am unable, despite some so-called Soviet/Russian tradition, to regard the paid murderer - even if half-orphaned and abused - Danila 'The Bloody-Handed' a hero. Discuss!
So, in my 'film investigations and interpretations', which takes up the largest part of Path of Blood, I apply a sustained analysis of these five films - Brother, Brother-2, War, Dead Man's Bluff and It Doesn't Hurt - through the prism of genre. How, my question was, did the writer-director really respond to developments in the post-Soviet historical context and how did he deploy genres, cinematic modes and intertextuality/allusions. The three pertinent questions, of course, were the what, how and why (or what for), as it befits an analysis proper (and not only analysis of film, as linguists, scientists and mechanics will tell you).
Put it as the Germans do: 'the tone makes the music'. How one says a thing is at least as important as what one says. 'I love you (yawn).' - 'Yeah, right!' And usually there is a reason behind the what and the how, i.e. the why. 'Why can't you look at me when you say you love me?' Form and content. Got it?
Hence, my questions are, what genres were used how and for what purpose? Balabanov, it transpires in Path of Blood, blended certain popular film genres that possess allegorical potential, subversively, to constantly deconstruct dominant ideas of Russian identity and alterity as well as mainstream myths, changing his position/perspective under the influence of a changing historical context.
Now, within Path of Blood's analytical chapters, my application of film genre theory is accompanied by a step-by-step approach to the filmic texts. Before making judgements regarding the genre, close film-textual readings and detailed analysis of the iconographies, themes, character constellations and plots are required, after all. There is no use labelling a certain film a gangster or action flick, without being aware of the implications of such genre assignment and the significance of the genre/s itself/themselves. One must be willing to do the work of explaining, otherwise one just judges a book by its cover. And some even got the cover wrong: Brother, I say, is no action film, as I explain in Path of Blood.
So, sometimes during my studies, I felt like an archaeologist using a variety of tools for my excavations. These excavations or analyses included the identification of intertextual works impacting on the films under investigation. These works belonged to the same generic corpora as the films and were either directly alluded to, or shared their plots, themes, iconography and cultural concerns to such a significant extent that they could be identified as direct intertextual influences. By following this approach and comparing my own detailed findings with the conclusions of established genre studies, I was able to identify and make sense of the genre fields in which Balabanov’s films operated.
I treated - and still treat - the filmic text, rather than the appropriations of the films by wider audiences and critics as the primary object of investigation. After all, let us face it! - What I or somebody else says or writes about a film belongs to a secondary, different discourse than the one initiated on screen by filmmakers for their audiences. It is the filmic text itself rather than a plurality of more or less informed opinions on, and studies of, the film, which is the nexus of the relationships that genre entails. Genre hybridity and variations, along with the iconography and syntactic/semantic composition of genres thus have been my main focus and were of paramount importance for understanding self/other representations in Balabanov’s films. From here, of course, it is now possible and plausible to investigate those secondary discourses - writings and websites mainly. But on its own this is not film analysis proper. It rather touches on the sociological side of things; film reception and appropriation, the arguable hyperconsciousness of post-/hypermodern movie goers; of course, they all have to do with genre, just not with the immediate filmic text directly.
In Path of Blood, then, I am careful to distinguish ‘film genre’, which is a concept applicable to all cinema, from ‘genre film’ - a particular kind of popular cinema oriented towards formulaic repetition and narrative predictability. In the case of the latter, I show that their ideological/cultural leanings can be ascertained by analysing their narrative structure. The reactionary nature of (most?) genre movies means that they subscribe to an ideology of representations – the achievement of the illusion of an ideal, natural reality – and in so doing unproblematically broadcast dominant cultural ideas and representational practices in fixed ritualised forms such as closed/reassuring order-chaos-order structures with happy endings, stereotypical representations and uncritical disseminations of mainstream myths.
Progressive filmmaking, like Balabanov’s, deconstructs these standard formulaic-reactionary texts. It tends to be self-reflexive, engages with historical complexities, casts characters representing the self and others as socio-historically specific, rather than eternal, types, and even criticises aspects of the self.
Finally, my application of genre theory has enabled me to unite Balabanov’s ‘genre movies’ and his ‘art-house’ output within a single, coherent oeuvre possessing an overarching narrative and shared concerns, themes and techniques. For Balabanov’s self/other representations are the result of the director’s subtle self-positioning within various narratives and of his films’ active, multi-layered dialogue with Hollywood genre film, with the contemporary post-Soviet Zeitgeist, and with his own audiences.
To give you just the one (abridged) example; Brother’s deployment of the gangster genre is discussed in its subversive neo-noir mode, blended with Dostoevskian psychological crime drama and presenting a late case of Russian chernukha . Brother, Path of Blood shall demonstrate to all but the doubting Thomases, presented Balabanov’s first ingenious deconstruction of the art-house/genre – film/movie hierarchy. Here, I demonstrate how the allegorical genre hybrid’s self-critical representations of post-Soviet Russian identity deploys a drifting, neo-noir gangster figure whose oedipal proclivities and psychotic behaviour aligns him with Dostoevskii’s Raskolnikov. Brother's deployment of the socially critical neo-noir/chernukha idiom helps it depict destructive family relationships between anti-heroic (Soviet-) Russian brothers of two generations as well as the younger brother's, Danila, dysfunctional relationships with two Russian women. I show that Brother’s ethical voice belongs to a German, Goffmann. But, ironically - irony is the discrepancy between reality and appearance - Goffmann's ethical authority is also undermined through his inability to provide viable guidance to Danila. The fact that the gangster genre focuses on the community sheds new light on Brother’s purportedly stereotypical, marginalising representations of Russia’s Caucasian Other who, according to the conventions of the gangster genre, still belonged to the peripheries of the Russian community (that of the self) in the early-to-mid 90s. The film, I contend in Path of Blood, deconstructs fixed stereotypes in favour of nuanced and fluid social types. Finally, I link the use of Hollywood-style neo-noir and gangster motifs with the implicit imaging of an overarching American Otherness. To put it bluntly, 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery', and it is hard for me to believe in the purported anti-Americanism of a director who so evidently adopted and adapted forms of his dominant Other's discourse, blending it on an equal basis with his own Russian one.
With respect to the interaction between self/other representations, myth and cultural tropes, and their mediation through these films’ ideological alignments, all of which can be traced through their reflections of the contemporary Zeitgeist, I thus demonstrate the challenges that Brother poses to the image of a heroic Russian self, to the trope of the functional family, to mainstream representations of Russia’s other and, consequently, to a host of related Russian cultural myths. For example, the myth of a Russian army and fatherland that care for their (half-)orphaned sons is placed in question by depictions of an abusive fraternal relationship which also has an oedipal, father-son dimension to it. The gallery of legendary heroes, moreover, is sullied by representations of the Russian soldier as an assassin.
But back to all five Zeitgeist film. Balabanov’s ingenious modification of two dominant Hollywood genres- the gangster and the western- with the help of various cinematic modes, and his profound explorations of the ways in which genre hybridity can contribute to the articulation of self-critically ambiguous self/other relations, demonstrates his mastership of cinema’s subversive potential. His critical modifications of the figures of the gangster and the Wild Westerner and his depiction of their fall from grace and transformation into the vigilante-turned-mercenary-turned-businessman points to the interaction between self/other representations, myth and cultural tropes, and their mediation through these films’ ideological alignments, all of which can be traced through their reflections of the contemporary Zeitgeist.
I use the term ‘ideology’ in the sense of the means by which dominant groups construct the limits of ‘primary lived reality’ for subaltern groups by ensuring that their own ideas, concepts, representational concerns and practices prevail. In a binary manner of speaking, reactionary genre movies deploy and propagate reactionary mainstream myths, cultural tropes and stereotypes, while progressive, ‘rebel’ films deconstruct them and challenge the dominant ideologies. Genres, like myths, favour the formulaic and the rule-bound. If conventional, reductive phenomena such as the formulae utilised by popular genre are deconstructed, I demonstrate, there is a reasonable chance that narrative myths and artistic tropes are likewise challenged, together with the mainstream culture that ‘hosts’ them, its dominant ideology and its stereotypical self/other representations.
Path of Blood's analysis joins the line of interrelated concerns, techniques, themes and countercultural forms of self/other representations running throughout all of Balabanov’s Zeitgeist movies. I also show that Balabanov’s critique of Russian nationalist ideologies goes hand-in-hand with his problematising of stereotypes and his creation of historically complex, ambiguous social types. All these fixed formulae are expressions of Russia’s dominant nationalist ideologies and they share their inflexible form with reactionary genre movies. The challenges to such movies posed by progressive, ‘rebel’ filmmaking entailed corresponding challenges to nationalist ideology. Balabanov’s oeuvre is testimony to the fact that such countercultural genre films not only passively reflect but also actively refract the contemporary Zeitgeist, together with its ideologies, myths and self/other representations. The five films that I investigate in Path of Blood bear witness to problematic ethnic and cultural issues, which are generally masked, naturalised and disambiguated by the dominant ideology that governs public discourse.
These five genre movies have been almost universally contrasted with Balabanov’s art-house creations. This has had obvious ramifications for readings of their ideological and representational significance and has tended to preclude recognition of both their countercultural orientation and their thematic affinity with the art-house films. First, these films simply do not conform to the conventional separation of art-house and ‘genre’ cinema, nor to the resultant hierarchy placing the latter beneath the former. Second, it needs to be recognised that Balabanov’s prolific oeuvre has generally been read in fragments by critics who, in order to ‘complete’ their view of their object of study, have tended to reproduce the assumptions of others, in a self-perpetuating cycle of misreadings. The third unsatisfactory reason for the largely dismissive treatment of the films in question relates to what was Balabanov’s own reluctance to explain his art – an unfortunate inconvenience, perhaps, but not one which should influence our understanding of the importance of his work.
Because of the omissions and oversights, Balabanov’s work has been subjected to stereotyping, which has resulted in the establishment of a bi-partite view of his work, influenced by an equally bi-partite understanding of film genres. The most common (mis)conceptions, and replications thereof, of Balabanov’s overall work have often been shaped by the belief that, with Brother, the director mysteriously turned to making reactionary genre movies. The standard view of Balabanov’s work presents it as a haphazard mix of art-house films and genre movies. The latter, it is argued, collude with dominant Great Russian ideologies, myths and representations. As such, the term oeuvre has, like the genre labels, so far been applied to Balabanov’s work without justification.
Moreover, the broad generalisation inherent in the phrase 'nationalistic audiences', which is a form of discrimination, distracts our attention from those largely helpless young audiences and individuals, whose patriotic sentiments ran high or may have run high under the treble impact of being cheated by capitalist market 'reforms' in the 1990s, of having their friends and family members been drawn into a gangsters' conflict in Chechnia and, ultimately, their fully understandable wish fulfilment in the theatre of dreams. Had the film experts taken a closer, analytical and more responsible look at the apparent hero called Danila Bogrov maybe the debates on Balabanov and his genre movies would have taken a different turn already one and a half decades ago.
But maybe it is not too late to give a new perspective on that part of Balabanov’s oeuvre which has been hijacked by nationalist Russian discourses and misunderstood by most critics and also academics. So, to sum up, I would like to briefly synthesise for you how Path of Blood transgresses the received and often reactionary views of Balabanov.
First, although Balabanov’s genre films do not conform to the image of art-house filmmaking prevalent in Russian film studies, I interpret them as intrinsically artistic, conceptually sophisticated and counterculturally subversive in their alignment against the dominant Great Russian ideology. Balabanov’s healthy disrespect for genre hierarchies and related rethinking of the relationship between identity and alterity in Russian culture enabled him to reject clear-cut notions of Great Russian-ness. The five films I analyse in Path of Blood are eloquent testimony to the past and present complexities of Russia’s ethnic, cultural and religious heritage, and to Balabanov’s understanding of the fact that, defined by hybridity, modern identities exist in more than one form, that the ever-ambivalent self resides in several places and is split from within. Balabanov’s criticism of homogenising representations of Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus, Western Europe and America prevalent in the media, East and West, rests on a transposition of the principle of hybridity to the level of the nation. But Balabanov’s commitment to hybridity and ambivalence never entailed an absence of moral values. After all, a vigorous antagonism to materialism, opportunism, drug culture, aggression and violence runs throughout his Zeitgeist films. The director’s countercultural approach to genre was intrinsically linked with his deeply ethical hostility to the distortions wreaked upon human relationships by mainstream ideologies.
Second, these films’ refusal to accept uncritically a dominant view of post-Soviet Great Russian national identity cannot be disentangled from their opposition to the idea of cultural homogeneity and historical linearity as the means of national survival. This places Balabanov at odds with large groups within the Russian political elites, with the institution of the Orthodox church, which is not the same as the Orhodox faith, and with right-wing and other nationalist forms of the dominant ethnic Russian ideology. In contrast to them, our master of cinema and free-thinking Russophile embraced ethnic, cultural and religious multiplicity, welcoming ambiguity and self-contradiction. The explorations of a fluid, internally fractured Russian identity that his films undertake have serious ramifications for at least two generations of Russians, and for both genders. Using the tools of genre and intertextuality they expose the lie behind mainstream society’s efforts to disambiguate historical complexity and to naturalise reductive, binaristic thinking. In short, they confirm that Balabanov’s understanding of cultural identity and alterity was as progressive as his approach to genre.
My approach to Balabanov's Zeitgeist genre films rests on the principle that the structure of a building (to use the central metaphor in It Doesn’t Hurt) needs to be understood before one can safely deconstruct it. There is no reason to assume that the same is not true of directors other than Balabanov. All interpretations need to be based on analysis. The focus on genre acknowledges the filmic text as the nexus of genre relations and gives critics and scholars a means by which they can avoid the trap of simplification arising from the failure to distinguish fully between the position of the film director and that of the characters who speak within the films themselves. Importantly, with its attention to the relationship between film convention and audience expectation, this method forces us to acknowledge how our own personal concept of self and ideology relates to the work under investigation. This double perception of the text and the self plays a critical role in our interpretation of meaning, which is based on the examination of the text. Furthermore, it immunises the sincere critic against secondary discourses, such as those of general public opinion, which are eminently worthy of study, but separately from the kind of close textual analysis practised in Path of Blood.
Armed with such principles, critics and scholars of Russian cinema can set aside their own ‘Othering’ and detached objectivities and undertake a functional-semiotic analysis of the entire corpus of post-Soviet Russian cinema, safe in the knowledge that the genre method requires a sustained and systematic focus on cinema’s prime mover. This is not to say, naturally, that it cannot be supplemented by recourse to other systematic accounts like, for example, narrative theory. Indeed, with its ability to account for, and synthesise, multiple aspects of the cinematic text, the genre method has the merit of not just providing a sound basis for filmic self/other interpretations but also of serving as the ultimate point of reference, or meta-theory, for all other interpretations, be they historical, psychoanalytical, sociological or feminist.
I suggest that the application of genre theory to Russian cinema could contribute to a reassessment of individual films, oeuvres and corpora, up to and including Russian ‘genre film’ in its entirety, as well as initial critical reactions to it. Such an approach would help us locate the specificity of Russian genres or sub-genres, such as the boevik, and to determine how Russian genre variations differ, or not, from their Western and Hollywood counterparts. Furthermore, it would assist critics and scholars in focusing on the filmic text and establishing a solid grounding for their engagements with audience receptions. Finally, since genre films are the gateway to dominant myths and ideologies, a theoretical approach based on genre is ideally equipped to situating a national cinema in its broader cultural context. Nowhere is this more urgently needed than in Russia, still in the throes of momentous change, and still riven by deep ideological fissures and ruptures. In the end it is clear to me that there can be no better guide to the contradictions, the complexity and the significance of that process than the enigmatic films of Aleksei Balabanov.
Florian Weinhold, June 2013
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Florian Weinhold (2013), Path of Blood The Post-Soviet Gangster, His Mistress and Their Others
in Aleksei Balabanov's Genre Films, out soon.
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