russian underground cinema

8/8/2019 Russian Underground Cinema

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Kinoglasnost: Soviet cinema in our time

By Anna M. Lawton


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Russian critics on the cinema of glasnost

By Michael Brashinsky, Andrew Horton


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The zero hour: glasnost and Soviet cinema in transition

By Andrew Horton, Michael Brashinsky

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the lm stock.

The opinion is heard and read in the mass media that if cinema is going to be parallel,

then it should remain parallel. Some people dont understand why parallel cinema people

are on television, have their articles printed in ofcial magazines, receive ofcial recognition.

Maybe its because people dont get it, that parallel cinema isnt underground any more.

We explain our behaviour simply. We cooperate with the media because we are offered the

opportunity to do so, and because it gives us a chance to make contact. Contact - is the

way to reach an audience. As far as ofcial recognition goes - this is up to each authorproducer.

Here, the concept of the independent producer is confused with the concept of

the independent cinema business. Just because an independent producer decides to work

in ofcial cinema, independent cinema doesnt disappear, just as ofcial cinema doesnt

disappear when an ofcial director starts working independently. Parallel cinema hasnt

divided cinema, it has broadened it.

The birth of parallel cinema can be xed in time in 1987, when the cine journal

CINEFANTOM appeared as typed carbon copies, paid for by its authors. The journal was

noteworthy because its editorial staff were mostly parallel cinema authors, who, together

with critics published original texts. The editorial staff considers that practice and criticism

should exist together for mutual benet, that criticism is a form of creative activity, with the

same status as practice.

Other tasks the journal sets itself are to expose insufciencies in Soviet cinema in the

light of world cinema. The journal doesnt conne itself to a specic theme within parallel

cinema, it willingly turns over its pages to critics analyzing traditional cinematography made

in more often than not, unconventional methods. Original material is published dedicated to

the creative works of Fasbinder, Shtraub. Sokurov, German and Tarkovsky. Specially close

attention is paid to Video Art, including experimental home video, video art, video

installations, and video acts. The journal strives towards its texts being not onlyinformational and academic, but also complete in the sense of their artistic form. The journal

is a platform for the development of new styles, genres and structures.

Now a little on the directors who are involved in parallel cinema in the USSR. I am

writing only about representatives in Leningrad and Moscow, as I know their work well.

I will begin with Leningrad - which is a kind of capital of parallel cinema. I will start by

naming three names: Evgeny Ut, Oleg Kotelnikov and Evgeny Kondratev. The way I see it,

they occupy a common cultural platform. All three are products of the same Leningrad

cultural underground, of artists and musicians. I think that Leningrad rock-culture, to be

more precise; its punk members had a big inuence on them. It was from there theparaphernalia of rock-concerts (idiotic make-up, scandalous costumes), the music itself,

and the way the actors performed, derived from. These directors are active musicians, and

in their way have an inuence on their musical contemporaries. They are also painters.

Kotelnikov is more famous as one of the leaders of the Leningrad New Wild. The New

Wave and Free Form movements are also close to them.

Evgeny Ut. Twenty eight, born and bred in Leningrad. He is the leader of the cine

group Mzhalalalm. He describes his creative work with the term necrorealism. From


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1982 to 1984 he was involved with situational photography, and he was involved with the

following necrorealistic subjects: mass ghts, murder, suicides, every day trauma. Legal

medicine had a big inuence on Ut, a world where pathologic-anatomical atlases are

important. Ut has been involved with cinematography from 1984, and his necrotic ideas

have come to life and taken form.

Uts rst two lms Orderlies-Werewolves and The Tree cutter which were lmed on

lm stock which had already expired, and thus the quality of the lms is terrible. But

thanks to necrorealism and Uts sense of black humor, this is all justied. In my opinion,

necrorealism - is an interpretation of the myth of the death of cinema in the context of the

Soviet cinema. Because Evgeny Ut - is a director and a human being - he has remained

active, and he has had to nd a way out, to be more exact, to understand - is their life after

death? He wasnt satised with the idealistic interpretation of the after-life. Like any true

materialist. He looked at the body and noticed that after death it is subjugated to a whole

series of metamorphoses. A song from the lm The Tree cutter appeared at that time.

Our corpses are being eaten

Fat maggots crawl around,

After death, thats when

The life weve been waiting for, begins!

Figuratively speaking, Ut transferred the metamorphoses of corpses onto the lm

industry: expired lm, careless editing, the hero is either a corpse, a suicidal or half-dead.

Compete madness, endless ideological battles lmed in high speed when you cant

distinguish us and them, and as a result the opinion is formed that this is simply about a

bunch of guys hanging around in the next village, as one of the lines in the song goes.

From an interview with Ut from CINEFANTOM:

Ut. ...The rst shoots were held in a large, crowded courtyard in the center of

Leningrad, after I had got a ght going around a rubbish tip. We didnt manage to lm forvery long, about 20 minutes, as I (I was holding the cine camera) was marched off in a

convey of policemen to the nearest police station, where I was read the book - I was

accused of almost everything. Then they decided that my case was not part of their

jurisdiction, sent me off to the RUVD, where they tormented me for a whole week, until the

lm was developed.

They looked at the lm and didnt discover any compromising material apart from

absolute madness. Then they let me go, advising me not to do this any more. I didnt take

their advice and on the next day calmly continued lming.

CINEFANTOM: What aspect of our own culture has had the biggest effect on you?Ut: None of it has, with the possible exception of K. Mikaberidzes My Grandmother,

but it is mostly an international work. Films from the French avant-garde of the 20s has

effected me - Andaluzskiy dog, Golden Age, by L. Bunuel and The Shell and the Priest

by J. Dulak.

The inuence of early Bunuel is particularly noticeable in Uts third lm - Spring. In his

picture, Ut began to pay more attention to the shot-construction, to editing, to the tactility of

the visuals. He turned away from fast-speed lming. Spring marked a new stage of


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development of Uts creative career. The dominating factor became a condition of

depression, expectation. If there was any laughter at all, you wouldnt call it care-free.

Among Uts contemporaries, Andrey Mertvy gures, a talented actor and director, the cocre-

ator

of Spring.

Oleg Kotelnikov. 30 years old. Artist. He works in animation. His biggest inuences

were Hering and Warhol. Because a group of artists usually work on a cartoon, his group

was called North Pole (apart from Kotelnikov, the group included A. Ovchinnikov, E.

Kondratyev, the Inal brothers), and it is only possible to talk about collection authorship.

North Poles methodology is simple: artists meet and a lm is made. The rst of the

groups lms was a cartoon made jointly by Kotelnikov and Medvedev, drawn with felt-tips

onto transparent lm, that is without any shooting at all. The groups animation lms are an

interpretation of the ideas from the paintings of the New Wild group. A wide variety of

materials are used: collages from newspapers and magazines, plasticine, sand, any old

thing which happens to be lying around. There is a role-playing lm; On the side of Olf,

which is lmed in a communal at. Its crazy action develops amongst corpses and half dead

people, and thus is necrorealism. But this lm, unlike Uts includes treatment of the

emulsion of cine lm with sharp objects and dies. Two worlds open up before the viewer:

the real world and the drawn world. But this is simply a formalality, as the two worlds

duplicate each other, then conict each other, then complement and build on each other,

they are absolutely independent. Animation is often used for the beginning sequences of

feature lms, such as in Kondratevs lms Halley Comet Nanainana, I forgot, idiot..., in

Evgeny Uts The Tree Cutter. North Pole created a video clip together with musicians

from the rock group Igri

Evgeny Kondatyev (idiot). 30 years old. He is the most mysterious person in parallel

cinema. He has been involved in cinematography before he arrived in Leningrad, when helived in Chernogorsk. In 1984 he became a member of the Mzhalalalm group.

He made several lms using necrealistic ideas: Work and hunger, Nanainana, I forget,

idiot...I Unlike Uts lms, which have a leaning towards lingering shots, to set up effects

similar to the necrorealism of pathologic-anatomical atlases, in his rst works, Kondratyev

used a fast, rough edit, similar to clips, full of symbolism. The lms are devoid of the

meaning that gave other necrorealistic lms a certain established character. These lms

work not only because of the subject of the lms, but also because of the editing.

The three minute lm I Forgot, Idiot...II was a turning point for Kondratyev. For the rst

time there was a concept in Leningrad parallel cinema. The lm begins with a series oftitles, declaring that a boy from a pioneer camp, who had agreed to act in a lm, left with

some grand dads in a bus, never to be seen again. After the titles there are a few

landscapes, and a man is seen walking towards the camera who suddenly disappears, and

at the end of the lm - blackness seen through a window. After the titles, the viewer is left

with a feeling of expectancy, and he pays great attention to the few banally-shot scenes, at

an incomprehensible man. The viewer knows that nothing is going to happening, but he

cant take his eyes off the screen. The culmination of the lm is reached at that point when

the titles merge with the landscape. It is as if Kondratev off-handedly demonstrated here


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the initial strength of naive Lumerovsky cinematography in which there is an unexplained

desire to see life reected in cinema, then a desire to leave, like that brave pioneer boy in

the illusive world of the silver screen.

Now Kondratyev has left necrorealism rmly behind and is working on the theory of

vertical and incorrect cinema.

An excerpt from a letter by Kondratyev reads: Authors, it seems to me, ght trying to nd

a space for themselves within the limitations that they have created for themselves. But

illusion is endless. The dream of all surrealists was to create an illusion, but they used

traditional language; editing and composition. Kondratyev strives towards an effect, when

the shot ends, the next one begins, and...!!! The viewer cannot understand - did he really

see that or was it his imagination. Kondratyev tries to return to the original sources of

cinema, and is not afraid of being primitive. He suggests paying attention to such

phenomena as the vertical direction of lm as it moves through a camera, and to the fact

that most movement is horizontal, in other words, to take a look into the sub consciousness

of the cinematographic process, at that which most directors dont even think about, and

take for granted. Kondratyev rst of all gives his students-teenagers transparent and black

exposed lm and gets them to make lms using without using a camera, with the help of

sharp objects and dies, making an accent on the fact that for a lm show, the projector is

more important than a camera. Only after they have mastered these aces, do the kids

begin to work with lm making equipment.

Kondratyev began using the ideas of verticalness and incorrectness in the lm

Development of the Cinema. Part 1. Horizontal primitive. The point of the lm is that he, in

the process of teaching the viewer the basics of the cinema, is at the same time a study

process for its author.

The lms Fire in Nature and Grezi cannot be written about using the traditional

language of lm critics.The best people to talk about the Leningrad group Che-Paev are its creators. To quote

from a booklet that they produced: The Leningrad cinematic group Che-paev was

organized in the Spring of 1988 as a creative laboratory of the world wide Chapaev society.

The group set itself the task of theoretical research in the area of contemporary

cinematography, and also practical propaganda of total Chapaevian ideas. The main

direction of the group can be seen in its name, which unites the names of two key gures of

the heroic pantheon - Ernesto Che Gevaro and V. I Chapaev. The artistic manner of the

group was formed directly under the inuence of the Leningrad New Cinema, particularly

by such representatives as Evgeny Kondratyev, Evgeny Ut and Andrey Mertviy. Theconcept of single heroic time, developed by art theoretician Olga Lepestkova had a

particular inuence on the group.

The group produced the lms: Alchoholism - to Battle!, Present to a Lonely Moscovite,

Battle for the Navy, Details of Icing-Over, Symmetrical Cinema, Movement, Chapaev.

As Alexei Feoktistov wrote in his article: the lm group Che-Paev presents the concept

of true Marxist-Leninist cinema, in as much as the universal improvement of authentic realty

automatically assumes the total improvement of the individual. Practically speaking, they

suggest an improvement of social consciousness through cinema.


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Apart from O. Lepestkova and A. Feoktistov, Maxmud Pizhamskii also joined the group,

the poet Kirill Sluchainiy and the composer Zakhar Nikolaev cooperate closely with it.

In 1988, Alexander Sokurev created the Leningrad Film School, which four parallel

cinema authors joined: Yevgeny Ut, Igor Bezrukov, Denis Kuzmin and Konstantin Mitenev.

Sokurev stresses that he is not their teacher, he is only helping them on an organizational

level.

Parallel cinema is not yet developing so fast in Moscow as in Leningrad. Moscovites

creativity is completely different from that of the Leningrad contemporaries. This is

connected with different cultural traditions. Putting it very roughly, the main difference is that

Moscovites try to govern cinematic language, using distance. Leningradians are getting

more and more deeply involved in the new cinematic world that they have created.

Boris Ukhananov. Thirty one. Video director. The rst thing that needs to be

emphasized, is that he is not involved in the cinema. Ukhananov is the rst to point this out.

Cinema and video are different art forms. Ukhananov calls his whole video production as a

video novel in a thousand cassettes. That is, it is an uninterrupted work (the end of which is

foreseen in the distant future), and divided up like a novel is, into chapters. Ukhananov

works on each chapter in different capacities, from the point of view of the director in one,

from the actors point of view in another, from a stylistic point of view and so on...

Ukhananov has also introduced the concept of the matrix. The whole video novel - is a

megamatrix. The matrix is material from one of the chapters, a complete literate

expression. But Ukhananov plans to work with the matrix further, and create variations.

The journey from the matrix to the variants is carried out by postructuralist editing.

Speaking at the Leningrad conference Youth Culture in 1988, Ukhananov said:

...Firstly I should say a few words about video authoring. The video author combines or

strives to combine the work of the cameraman and director as the key person who drives,

determines the composition and development of video creation. It is even possible to saythat the creation of a video is conducive with the striving of the camera to merge with the

video author.

I identify three levels of this merging. We will call this object... a video centaur, and

describe three different ways in which it appears: video-eye, video-body and video-hand...

Generally speaking these are completely different principles of inter-relationships with the

world and the camera.

Ukhananov is one of the CINEFANTOM journals editors; he manages the converstaions

on video section.

Ukhananov doesnt stop with what he has already done. Recently he began to work witha new concept - fatal edit. This is editing inside the video camera. The technology can be

described as follows: the matrix is lmed, then the cassette is not taken out of the camera,

but new material is lmed in dabs on top of the already existing, shot video. As a result, a

ready video lm is taken out of the video camera.

Ukhananov also teaches. The Free University was formed in Leningrad in 1988 - this

was the rst independent university in the USSR which provided a humanitarian education.

The university has theatrical studios, a lm and video production department, a literature

department, a history of art department, a painting department and a music department.


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Ukhananov heads the department of individual lm and video direction, where he teaches

together with other patricians and theoreticians of parallel cinema.

The Aleinikov brothers. Igor is twenty seven. I am twenty three. We have been lming

together for two years, and have made dozens of 16mm lms and two on 35mm. Igor

Aleinikov has been involved with cinema since he was nineteen, and without my

involvement, created over ten lms on 16mm and 35mm. Writing manifestos is not our

thing. Working at the end of the postmodern epoch (we still relate to being postmodernists),without tiring ourselves out on concrete movements, styles, genres of lm. There is an

element of social comment in our lms, such as in Cruel Illness of Men, Metastasi and

Attraction. And there are lms in which the ideas of Moscow conceptualism are to be

found, such as Tractors, The End of the Film. We liken irony to alienation. The lm I am

Cold. So What? is a kind of creative self-reex. We have shot a few cartoon lms. You can

say that we are experimenters. But the experiment is not so much to do with creating a new

language but in coming to terms with and using the existing cinema structure, a broadening

of the language of cinema at the cost of other types of Art.

We want the viewer to understand our lms, and for that we try and look into theconsciousness of the viewer. In this, we consider that apart from a minimal knowledge of

cinema culture, it is important for us to understand such sciences as semiotics, psychology,

the physiology of perception, the theory of information and others. Igor Aleinikov is also

involved in social cinema activities, which is a quite separate form of creativity. He is the

founder and the editor-in-chief of the journal CINEFANTOM, the organizer of the festival of

parallel cinema (the rst festival was held in 1987).

And so, parallel cinema - is not made up of isolated lms made by mischievous young

people, as Soviet press refers to us, but a new movement in cinema culture, which is

already bringing fruit. Dreams are coming true.

Published in the magazine ISSKUSTVO KINO (THE ART OF CINEMA), No. 6, 1989.

russian underground cinema

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