The Gone and the Wind

Oleg Kovalov, a renowned analyst of the work of Sergei Eisenstein, attributes the success of Battleship Potemkin to its reproduction of a primordial life force, with an irrational but purposeful montage and the pulse of a woman's heartbeat.
The compilation of a programme of Russian films produced during the ten years since perestroika, cannot help but take into account the events that occurred during that time such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Alliance of Independent States, the war in Chechnya and how Russian filmmakers were influenced by their sudden freedom from state control.
The most representative of these filmmakers are Alexei German, Alexandr Rogoshkin, Kira Muratova, Alexei Balabanov, Oleg Kovalov, Pyotr Lutsik, Karen Shakhnazarov, Alexandr Sokurov, Lydia Bobrova, Valery Todorovsky, Bachtiyar Khudojnazarov, and Valeri Ogorodnikov. Other important Russian filmmakers, like Sergei Bodrov, have already been presented at past Thessaloniki Film Festivals, and that is the only reason they are absent from this tribute.
During the period of glasnost and perestroika, the strictness of the Party Committee for the Supervision of Creative Art was relaxed, while Soviet films began to lose their influence over audiences. During the nineties, the only people showing any concern for Russian films were the authors themselves, their friends and a few European intellectuals. The coup de grace to the Supervisory Committees was dealt by Little Vera in the film by Pitchul, with her rude gesture towards the policeman, which marked the fall of totalitarianism.
The void created by the demise of the Supervisory Committees was accompanied by the annihilation of everything that had existed previously. During the glasnost and perestroika periods, what marked Soviet films under Gorbachev was the feeling of anger that reality provoked. This was followed by a low tide, and the question arises as to whether it was caused by a lack of ideology.
Ideology had been the common denominator of Russian films and constituted their main problem. With changed times, financial considerations took charge catching the Russian film industry totally unprepared. The number of films produced in the perestroika period dropped from 200 to 30 up to 1995. Poverty came hand in hand with independence, since the state financing the industry had enjoyed before, was drying up due to more urgent needs in other sectors of the economy.
This impasse, however, led to the discovery of benefits to be gained from low-budget projects. In such an environment, filled with attempts and failures, one can understand the emergence of The Barber of Siberia by Nikita Mikhalkov, with all its gloss and affirmation of national values which every environment needs. The emergence of borscht soap operas is also understandable, as a certain kind of echo of once-popular borscht westerns filmed with Soviet couleur locale.
Between ideology and borscht soap operas there is a whole tradition of Russian culture with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol and Chekhov whose heroes are often criminals, rakes, and prostitutes. Russians are traditionally fascinated by the repentant sinner and the reformed evil-doer. At the same time, Russian films of the past decade are often concerned with the emergence of a man's soul - a difficult and tormenting process and, at the same time, a very enlightening one.

Mirolijub Vuckovic