Was perestroika a radically new cultural phenomenon or were there continuities before the period from 1985–91 that can shed more light on this era? To what extent was perestroika prepared by underground art and culture prior to the Gorbachev period and why do contemporary filmmakers in Russia revisit the late-Soviet period in search of aesthetic values and inspiration? This intellectually invigorating volume critically engages with these questions from a wide set of perspectives and with the wisdom of hindsight.
The twelve articles in the collection are classified into three thematic categories entitled “Styles,” “Characters,” and “Genres.” Authors examine development of film genres and their internal modifications and narrative shifts, the key figures of perestroika cinema and, what analysis so aptly argues, their still very conventional and conservative treatment in the late and post-Soviet periods. Contributors analyze changes in cultural paradigm; however, their reassessment shows an overwhelming presence of continuities in perestroika cinema that challenges the standard notion of this period being a radical turning point in Soviet cultural history. Authors argue that many of these organically-developing trends continued well into post-1991, which further calls into question the label “post-Soviet” as an adequate term for Russian cinema after the collapse (8). With an eye on revisiting perestroika, authors make connections with contemporary Russia, arguing that major trends in the direction of film commercialization practices and conformity created non-nostalgic cinematic projects that long to recreate or recapture the late Soviet “energy and hope for the future” (10).
Boris Yukhananov's opening article of the first section argues that what happened in perestroika was a natural continuation of “the compressed energy that was pulsating and waiting to break through” (20). What was so distinctive about it was the realization that the system was dying out and the energetic-artistic drive that surged with this awareness produced works of art that focused primarily on language and conceptualism. Analyzing continuities and ruptures, Victoria Donovan's article looks at the phenomenon of contemporary remakes of Brezhnev-era comedies, arguing that they can be best described as “domestic-foreign remakes,” a hybrid genre that involves simultaneous identification and the foreignizing of source texts. These remakes engage in revisionism of the Soviet period by asserting narratives of disintegration, distancing from the past, geographical decentering, de-nativizing via American soundtracks, and establishing difference between Soviet and contemporary time where the present is “cast, quite literally, as a foreign country” (33). The first thematic cycle ends with two articles by the editors who examine the trajectories of filmmakers Sergei Solov΄ev and Aleksei German (in the book transliterated as Gherman), whose oeuvre spans both Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Eugénie Zvonkine's article follows German's Hard to be a God, an almost half-century-old project that was completed only posthumously in 2013. Zvonkine details a fascinating history of script writing and film plans that in all its hypostases wanted to be “in sync with its time” (43), but the time(s) turned out to be troubled and almost never-ending. Birgit Beumers's article examines continuities and ruptures within the framework of Sergei Solov΄ev perestroika cinematic trilogy. Beumers argues that the favorite stagnation-era trope of alienated youth prone to violence and political inactivity carried over into the perestroika period. Solov΄ev's films, however, add another dimension to the bleak representation of reality deprived of meaning, that of performativity. Solov΄ev introduces different youth of the artistic underground that features artificiality and performance as its agenda. Solov΄ev makes a paradigm shift, moving from depictions of dark reality to the realm of dreams, chaos, and the artificial and performative nature of everyday life. With his disrupted narratives, play with temporalities, and carnivalesque atmosphere, Solov΄ev opens new realms for escapism from the collapsing Soviet system and introduces a “player, performer, joker” who only can “laugh and play” (66).
Part Two, “Characters,” begins with Emily Schuckman Matthews's analysis of the prostitute in Soviet and Russian cinema. The author shows that this archetypal image persists in its stereotypical cinematic representations since the beginnings of Russian cinema, through the 1920s, and becomes an iconic image of chernukha. These films show the prostitute, an object of male desire with no or very little agency, as a symbol of the economic anxieties of glasnost and crises of masculinity. Post-1991 iterations give some agency to the image by making the prostitute a more humanized subject of society. Rita Safariants's article examines narrative shifts in the cinematic treatment of rock stars who from the 1960s until the collapse of the USSR were a symbol of change and progress only to become cultural victims and martyrs in the post-Soviet period. Mark Lipovetsky's discussion traces changes in the performative character of the cine-trickster, who in the 1980s deconstructs cultural narratives granting freedom from within the system, a “personal statehood independent from the Soviet regime” (111), only to be devoid of its charisma and transgressive nature in the 1990s. Julian Graffy's contribution looks at the persistent stereotypical representations of the foreigner in cinema as well as traditionally negative portrayals of the west and impossibility of a genuine encounter in these cinematic visions that typically promote “neurotic vision of Russian superiority” and xenophobia (142).
The subsequent four chapters inquire into stylistic specificities of various genres during perestroika. In her well-argued account, Volha Isakava tackles the paradox of the chernukha genre: claims on chernukha representing social reality is essentially incongruent with its visual idiom saturated with excessive and grotesque language that subverts the very idea of verisimilitude. Otto Boele's analysis argues that comedy was a risky genre for the bleak aesthetics of chernukha and had to modernize itself by employing “chernukha light,” a strategy of borrowing from the “black trend” to adapt to general philosophical tendencies in cinema. In her analysis of science fiction films, Natalija Majsova shows that during perestroika scientific fantasy underwent major changes in the direction of revitalizing the genre's potential. With its relaxation of earlier didacticism, removal of obligatory praise for the Soviet space program, and introduction of more entertainment, sci-fi underwent a significant update in this period. Stephen Norris's contribution looks at revisions in the cinematic treatment of the Civil War theme that went from glorifying the Bolsheviks in the earliest films to gradual humanization and rehabilitation of their enemies in the 1970s and 80s to a complete recast of the concept of heroism that in the post-Soviet period became tightly connected to White officers.
The collection brings an important addition to the existing literature on perestroika and post-Soviet cinema. Tackling the wider issue of ruptures and continuities, the volume reflects on and challenges some of the persistent stereotypes attributed to this period and brings an intellectually invigorating and well-researched account that will be of great interest to researchers and students of film and culture.
