Kinoeye. 4.4.

Russia, with a rewarding jaunt over to Lithuania, is the focus of the new issue of Kinoeye. Beginning with that swerve to the west, George Clark, having sampled the "Baltic Focus" at the 2003 edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, finds that "it was Lithuania who, to my mind, produced the most cinematic and formally assured films." Which leads to an overview not only of those particular films but also to a brief history of the whole of Lithuanian cinema.

On to Russia:

• Lars Kristensen takes deep and long look at Reka (The River), a film that "has the ability to revert the general perception in the Western media of [Aleksei] Balabanov [more] as a mere chauvinistic nationalist."

• Among western audiences, Idi i smotri (Come and See) is one of the most widely known and respected films of the late Soviet era. Josephine Woll surveys the career of its director, Elem Klimov, who, it may surprise some, began directing comedy and eventually landed behind a desk.
• The work of Aleksei German is not as familiar to westerners, but Russian critics once voted his Moi drug Ivan Lapshin (My Friend Ivan Lapshin) one of the "Ten Best Soviet Films of All Time." Ronald Holloway introduces and interviews a fascinating director, "a walking encyclopedia of facts and theories" and "a guardian of history as it was lived and handed on to generations to follow."

Then, Kinoeye editor Andrew James Horton:

Olga Stolpovskaia and Dmitry Troitsky's Ia liubliu tebia (You I Love, 2004) is worthy of some attention if only because it has the intriguing distinction of being hailed as 'the first gay-positive movie from [Russia].' Sexuality in general stayed firmly in the closet in Soviet film-making between 1917 and glasnost (a Russian film showing a sex scene wasn't made until 1988, and homosexuality was even more of a taboo.

So with its novel claim to fame, brisk and cheerful editing style and hip pop tunes, Ia liubliu tebia is a feel-good romantic comedy that should do much to blow away the cobwebs from the closet Russian film has been stuck in for so long. But while it should, will it?

Posted by dwhudson at September 17, 2004 6:51 AM