"Everything Will Be OK": A New Trend in Russian Film

Abstract

Judging by a number of films screened the past two years at the Sochi International Film Festivals, a trend of has emerged in Russian film. Such films as last year's entries from Russia-Vse budet khorosho, Amerikanskaia doch', and Moskovskie kanikuly [Moscow Vacations]-all light comedies with positive themes, pave the wave for similar good-news films this year. A survey of these films shows a departure from the themes of chernukha (black hole) and pornukha (pornography), which permeated glasnost and postglasnost films. Under the scrutiny of the camera, Russian life in the late 1980s and 1990s metamorphosed into ever more grotesque and perverse It had simmered for years under several layers of overall optimism of the Soviet regime (to quote the words of the Nobel poet laureate Joseph Brodsky in his poem Verbs). In the glasnost era, seemed need expose all of society's previously suppressed ills and sins. Directors obviously sought negate or totally expose-as in Sergei Livnev's Serp i molot [Hammer and Sickle]-anything resembling film of the Soviet era on its bright path a beautiful future. Glasnost directors made self-lacerating films exposing all their ulcers and psychoses. Illness, envy, hate, violence, greed, selfdestructive sex, dysfunctional family life-all the negative unspoken problems that plagued society all those years-violently surfaced on the screen. Codirector of last year's film Moon Dogs, Lidiia Tumaeva recently said in an interview that it was no longer duty give a positive answer or resolution life's problems, but to bare our souls in all their mutated and perverse forms. Now, however, it seems that the needs of the directors and their audiences are changing. This tendency was already evident in D. Astrakhan's 1995 festival entry, Vse budet khorosho, where he creates a modern Cinderella who fluctuates between two heroes. Filled with every possible social cliche, one scene after another contrasts the new Russians with more traditional types. The dreams of a wealthy mafia businessman and his son, both of whom have succeeded on the other side of the ocean, seem shallow when contrasted with the traditional values of a SovietRussian hero. Hard work, friends, that simple but open-hearted Russian hospitality, determination, courage, even true love, and, yes, the honor of military duty replace fancy Western clothes, flashy cars, a villa in California, a classy education and expensive hotels. In Vse budet khorosho, a Russian nationalism is born. From the opening shot, Russian moviegoers are treated a positive Russian hero. His simple-minded good nature and healthy physique are already familiar attributes of the Socialist Realist hero. Kolia, our factory worker, sets a good example despite his weaknesses-a drinking binge with his buddies on his wedding night and his impulsive attempt kill himself when he learns of his fiancee's infidelity. When he returns from military duty, proudly wearing his uniform, he expects marry his