Editorial
When the Tsarist filmmakers fled south to Odessa after the revolution, the Soviet studios that replaced them, after a decade or so of experimentation and innovation, looked to Hollywood for guidance in producing popular mass film. Now that the Soviet systems have disappeared, some directors are turning that way again. Just take Nikita Mikhalkov's last film Barber of Siberia, it apes Hollywood from start to (almost) finish. The ending: a bearded Russian peasant face staring silently into the distance, seems peculiarly Russian, but even that cannot counter the U.S feel of the film as a whole. No coincidence, then, that last year's Moscow Film Festival, organised by Mr Mikhalkov, included no Russian-made films. But he is not the only director out there, and The Barber... bombed in the box office. Not only did it fail to make a profit - it made quite a substantial loss. Funny then, that the loudest voice in Russian Film today calling for a commercial film industry has proved so completely inept.
They don't just seek to imitate the Yanks, thank God, they mock them. Alexei Balabanov has so far made two very successful films doing just that: "Brother" and "Brother 2", mixing Russian and thickly accented English throughout the film, there are great lines like "Are you gangsters? No, we are Russians...", which blend into cult rock songs (Bol'shie goroda....). Nothing arty here, then, just a pace and cast (teen idol Sergei Bodrov Jr, the irrepressible Sergei Makovetskii and the disturbing Viktor Sukhorukov) that all ensure the films a loyal following.
Although Balabanov did well out of these films, he has another string to his bow - as the truly strange Of Freaks and Men proves. Like the Brother films, it stars Makovetskii and Sukhorukov, but there the similarities end. Were it not for the title sequence providing hard and fast evidence, you would not believe this was also by Balabanov. Set in 1900 Petersburg you watch as various people, including a blind woman, a maiden ripe for corruption and a pair of siamese twins are drawn into a world of porn. It resembles a creaky black and white film from the early days of cinema, with a largely static camera and shots framed in the manner of C19th photographs. That said, what success it had with the public was more likely due to the tits'n'arse'n'spanking scenes, than to its retro feel and experimental camera work. It is a film shot with irony and an infallible eye for the surreal and the ridiculous (all those tartan suitcases) that seduces the viewer in a very Powell and Pressburger way.
This is a very "European" mix of sex and art in film found in other directors, one of the most talked about being Alexander Zel'dovich whose film Moscow is a visual feast. The richness of the colours and the beauty of the shots ensure its plot (mafia, murder, opera, debauchery) is lifted from the banal but not immune to criticism or comment. Mr Zel'dovich explains that Lev (one of the films main characters) stands for the cynicism of the modern age, "He is a post- industrial, post-historical, post modern brute" who "embraces the culture of crime to better his social standing". Similarly, the female lead (Bohema) "represents the power of families that have lived in Moscow since the war, or even the revolution, or before...she is a princess who wants her decadence but now nothing can satisfy her". It has a truly fin de siecle feel and is definitely a film of today's Russia seen through the seedy highlife of the capital.
While these films are all distinguished by a sharpness of focus and interesting visual sequences, one director that stands out as more of a lone voice, is A. Sokurov. His films (e.g. Taurus about Lenin's last days) are unashamedly impressionistic in overall tone, but within lurks an experienced documentary filmmaker. What never ceases to surprise, is the contrast in his work between the professional and the amateur. He uses trained actors side by side with members of the public, mixes documentary and constructed footage. There is in his recent work a fuzzy lingering gaze and sense of something only dimly remembered, of lives more obscured than revealed.
Not all modern Russian films are works of art, cult classics or satirical masterpieces. There are a good many run of the mill comedies (think: American-Pie-meets-Blair Witch), and tedious war epics made by well meaning directors (Prisoner of the Caucasus), while the films most often rerun on T.V are Soviet classics like Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears and Ironies of Fate. But among all that, thanks in part to Musei Kino, there is an intelligent, exciting film industry, that has retained its integrity in these difficult times. Film remains the one thing the Russians make better than Vodka.
24th Jan 2002