Shamara: writing and screening the female body

Abstract

Shamara, a novella by Svetlana Vasilenko published in 1990, was adapted for the screen by Natal'ia Andreichenko in 1994, based on Vasilenko's own screenplay. This article looks at the ways in which Andreichenko's adaptation of Shamara participates in post-Soviet cinematic conventions by subjecting the female body to sexual violence yet at the same time radically disrupts those conventions. Shamara's most significant challenge to post-Soviet cinema stems from the way it represents female subjectivity and sexuality. If glasnost and early post-Soviet films privilege the male gaze, Andreichenko's film undoes this privilege in that the female body becomes the subject structuring the gaze. As such, the construction of female sexuality in Shamara is largely a matter of self-representation rather than male definition. Moreover, although Shamara's body is the site of violation, in the final analysis, she triumphs over her abuse(rs) in that the violated body becomes the catalyst for enlightenment and change. This article also explores the film's use of the maternal metaphor, which is completely absent from the novella, and the extent to which this deployment clashes with the unconventional portrayal of the female body.