Broken Ties and Unwelcoming Spaces in Contemporary Russian Cinema

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel will discuss the problem of how contemporary Russian cinema shows family ties and how private and public spaces shape traumatic experiences and failed connections between individuals. The paper “Forget Me (Not): Traumatic History and Failed Filiation in Kantemir Balagov’s "Beanpole"” discusses how Balagov’s film stages an extremely close, and thus uncomfortable, encounter between the spectator and the often repressed traumatic elements of the past, but ultimately insists on a definitive rupture between the past and the present. In the paper “The World as a Gap: the Rhetoric of Denial in Vladimir Bitokov’s "Mama, I’m Home"”, the author reveals how the idea of death transgresses the borders of established cultural patterns and forms of normativity, as well as how public and private spaces provide the background for this transgression. The paper “The Influence of Lack of Privacy on the Shaping of Womanhood in Pichul’s "Little Vera" and Balagov’s "Closeness"” examines the influence of family connections and home spaces on the maturation of a young woman during the Perestroika and in the 1990s. Finally, the paper “Cinematic Depictions of Home: The Contemporary Russia of Andrei Zviagintsev's "Elena" and Aleksandr Khant's "Viktor "The Garlic"” exposes the ways in which domestic spaces become the containers for dysfunctional family relationships, a fragile moral code, and acts of betrayal for the sake of material well-being.

Sub Unit

• Cinema, Television, Electronic Media

Chair

• Nevena Dakovic, U of Belgrade (Serbia)

Papers

• Forget Me (Not): Traumatic History and Failed Filiation in Kantemir Balagov’s 'Beanpole' - Ellina Sattarova, U of Southern California

• The Influence of the Lack of Privacy on the Shaping of Womanhood in Pichul's 'Little Vera' and Balagov's 'Closeness' - Yelena Aydinyan, Brown U

• Cinematic Depictions of Home: The Contemporary Russia of Andrei Zviagintsev's 'Elena' and Aleksandr Khant's 'Viktor "The Garlic"' - Elizabeth McBean, Ohio State U

Discussant

• Daria V. Ezerova, U of Cambridge (UK)