Forget Me (Not): Traumatic History and Failed Filiation in Kantemir Balagov’s 'Beanpole'

• In Event: Broken Ties and Unwelcoming Spaces in Contemporary Russian Cinema

Abstract

The author explores fraught negotiations of spatial and relational distance in Kantemir Balagov’s second feature film "Beanpole" (2019). She looks at the ways in which Balagov’s film brings into proximity and makes indistinguishable categories that are imagined as fundamentally distinct: war and peace, perpetrators and victims, friends and enemies, closeness and alienation, protection and oppression. At the center of her inquiry are the ways in which Balagov’s film negotiates the distance between the spectator and the traumatic events it represents.

Author

• Ellina Sattarova, U of Southern California