Balabanov’s Bandits: The Bandit Film Cycle in Post-Soviet Cinema

Abstract

Aleksei Balabanov, Sergei Sel’ianov and their production company CTB played an important role in the cultivation and propagation of the bandit film cycle in Russian cinema. In as much, Brother (1997) and Dead Man’s Bluff (2005), act as bookends for this productive cycle and refract the Russian bandit cultural mythos. As the political and social situation in Russia evolved, so too did the films that glamorized and refracted this period of lawlessness. By placing Dead Man’s Bluff within the context of the bandit cycle, it is then possible to interpret the film as a postmodern pastiche in which Balabanov critiques and parodies the films that he and CTB popularized – once again providing a cinematic auto-citation, for which Balabanov was so well-known.