Cinematic Depictions of Home: The Contemporary Russia of Andrei Zviagintsev's 'Elena' and Aleksandr Khant's 'Viktor "The Garlic"'

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

Abstract

In this paper, the author analyzes cinematic depictions of home in contemporary Russian film. She shows how filmmakers Andrei Zviagintsev and Aleksandr Khant fill the domestic space with dysfunctional family relationships, a fragile moral code, and acts of betrayal for the sake of material well-being and how both films depict a contemporary society negotiated out of the material foundation of the former socialist world.

Author

• Elizabeth McBean, Ohio State U