Post-Soviet Russian Film

I realize that the BBC is deeply invested in giving Russia as much dramatically bad press as possible. Life in Russia is difficult, and no one here wants to claim that our coverage of Russia's political/artistic/social/criminal/etc. climate should be of the 99% POSITIVE REVIEW FOR FATHERLAND variety. I lived there, I'm a realist, and normally I relish my daily BBC feed--their reportage is usually delightfully terrible in the Fox News Melodrama kind of way. But today's article on post-Soviet Russian film really irks me for some reason. Perhaps it's the wistful nod to Lenin's love of film-as-propaganda in the beginning?

The government saw the medium as an ideal propaganda tool and promoted it from the outset, building thousands of cinemas in urban and rural areas. Consequently, Russian film-making flourished.

Yes, film as an art flourished in the Soviet period, but the decades when film had to agree with party politics at the risk of the director's life hardly seems a period when we can simply state things were great for film.

Or maybe it's the assertion that Russia's new cultural low can be seen in 1. lower earnings for local movies when contrasted with American film sales and 2. The prevalence of popcorn and cell phones in theaters.

Seriously? Do I need to invest the effort in Googling the international profits of Avatar versus the latest British blockbuster, or can I save my finger strength? Are we really going to pretend that American theater floors aren't sticky with popcorn bits and soda, or that theateres don't glow with the pale blue shimmer of a million texting cell phones?

This is not to say the article doesn't bring up some good points about distribution, funding, bureaucracy, and a lack of local interest for local films, all of which hamper the production of new films in Russia. These are certainly problems, as they are almost everywhere in the world. But the article entirely neglects a tremendously powerful film tradition that continues in Russia today. It's a tradition that could have benefited greatly from BBC coverage, had the BBC been worried about increasing awareness of talented filmmakers and not churning out yet another article dedicated to depicting Russia as a barren criminal hell-scape.

Ok, rant aside, here are some films that have come out of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Empire, all of which I believe are of note. They're not the best movies Russia has produced in the last 25 years, not by a long shot. But they are some of my favorites, and they demonstrate just how active and versatile Russia's film community still is:

* Peter FM - A simple romantic comedy, and fun.

* Burnt By the Sun - Beautiful cinematography and incredibly well acted. A family drama about a Soviet general.

* 12 - A modern adaptation of 12 Angry Men done by the same man who directed and starred in Burnt By the Sun. So well adapted I'd swear it was from a Russian original, but possibly a little too optimistic for a piece on Chechnya.

* Kakooshka - Another romantic comedy, but not at all simple. It's set during the war and follows two soldiers - one Russian and one Finnish - who are stranded with a young Lap woman on her farm. I find this movie hysterical, but that could just be me.

I'm stopping at those four because Thad knows better than I do, and can post here also. But note there are a lot more modern films that I'm looking forward to. Here are five:

* Hipsters - this movie looks weird.
* We're From the Future - this movie looks funny.
* Taras Bulba - this movie looks beautiful.
* Mermaid - this movie looks fantastic.
* Morphine - this movie is based on texts by Bulgakov.

See? There's so much modern Russian cinema I was able to get through this whole post without mentioning Night Watch.