BRIC POP: The Blog

Hey. Sorry I’ve been away for a few weeks. I went to a wedding in Italy and realized that they have already dropped behind the BRICs culturally…it’s now nothing but a poorly-run museum with good food and football teams.  Plus, I’m doing a freelance project while trying to write the book, so that’s been a challenge. No excuses…back to the good stuff.

I have never seen a bad Russian film. Ever. From the auteurs – Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Sokurov – to the new post-Soviet mass cinema, they’re always doing something interesting. Which is underplayed because my friends in the film industry in Russia tell me that they don’t feel like cinema is accorded the same regard as theatre, literature, or fine arts, and the Russians themselves seem to feel their mass films are schlocky. C’mon guys, have you looked at us or the Indians lately?

Check out the subtitle design of Night Watch. Who would have thought to take a necessary evil and make it an artistic device? I love this film, and love the idea of Russian blockbusters competing with Hollywood.

Here’s the film’s trailer.  (Don’t you love how a Hollywood VO is all it takes to remove 50% of the Russian soul from a movie?)

As much as I love the great directors of the past, two other recent films that just blew me out of my chair were “Brother” (Брат), made by Aleksei Balabanov and starring the brilliant late actor and director Sergei Bordruv Jr., and “The Return” (Возвращение; tr.:Vozvrashcheniye) by Andrey Zvyagintsev and starring Konstantin Lavronenko (who won Best Actor at Cannes for Zvyagintsev’s follow-up film, “The Banishment”). I recommend these three as a primer for those seeking a socio-cultural introduction to post-Soviet Russia.

And I’ll try to post more, even when traveling.