Contemporary Russian Сinema and Its World Contexts

Abstract

The author of the essay examines the main trends in contemporary
Russian cinema, correlating them with similar manifestations in world cinema
and, simultaneously, tracing the origins of these phenomena to the Soviet
cinematic past. Thus, the essay’s section devoted to the analysis of manifestations
of the Aesopian language in cinema, reveals models of the use of metaphors,
symbolic allusions, etc., — observed in the cinema of the socialist countries or in
Spanish cinema under the Franco regime - as ways of countering censorship bans.
In this context, it should be noted that these trends became firmly established in
the cultures of the mentioned countries and have been preserved in them after
the acquisition of political freedoms.
The section entitled “Utopian Realism vs “New Sociality” analyses the
technique of combining slice-of-life approach with the magic tale canon, opened
by American director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin in the 1930s,
known as “utopian realism” and widely employed in the Russian cinema of the
past quarter century, in particular in the stage-to-screen trend of the New Drama.
The essay also looks at forms and methods of the trend of magical realism
typical of the turning points in the historical development of different countries
and here exemplified by the cultures of Latin America and the Russian cinema
of the 1990s.
Further, the author analyses the adaptation of Hollywood genre clichés for
Russian blockbusters, as well as a more frank representation of social realities in
the context of new developments in the sphere of economy.