Comedy as Democratic Possibility: Ryazanov’s 'The Promised Heaven' as Dissensus

• In Event: Rescuing Utopias: Searching for Liberatory Potentials in Late Soviet Cinema

Abstract

This paper reconsiders Eldar Ryazanov’s The Promised Heaven (Nebesa Obetovannie, 1991) as a uniquely self-aware critique of the late Soviet present and an unexpected site of democratic possibility. The paper strives to take Ryazanov’s film outside of its traditional apolitical and conformist readings and situates it in sharp contrast to dominant chernukha films of the glasnost’ period. Engaging the framework of Jacques Ranciere’s dissensus, it analyzes how The Promised Heaven invokes the demos (and points out the very possibility of demos outside a formal democracy), grants agency to the disadvantaged, and demands an inclusive post-Soviet future.

Author

• Pavel Savgira, UCLA