Now faced with the "zero hour" created by a new freedom of expression
and the dramatic breakup of the Soviet Union, Soviet cinema has recently
become one of the most interesting in the world, aesthetically as well
as politically. How have Soviet filmmakers responded to the challenges
of glasnost? To answer this question, the American film scholar Andrew
Horton and the Soviet critic Michael Brashinsky offer the first
book-length study of the rapid changes in Soviet cinema that have been
taking place since 1985. What emerges from their collaborative dialogue
is not only a valuable work of film criticism but also a fascinating
study of contemporary Soviet culture in general. Horton and Brashinsky
examine a wide variety of films from BOMZH (initials standing for
homeless drifter) through Taxi Blues and the glasnost blockbuster Little
Vera to the Latvian documentary Is It Easy to Be Young? and the "new
wave" productions of the "Wild Kazakh boys." The authors argue that the
medium that once served the Party became a major catalyst for the
deconstruction of socialism, especially through documentary filmmaking.
Special attention is paid to how filmmakers from 1985 through 1990
represent the newly "discovered" past of the pre-glasnost era and how
they depict troubled youth and conflicts over the role of women in
society. The book also emphasizes the evolving uses of comedy and satire
and the incorporation of "genre film" techniques into a new popular
cinema. An intriguing discussion of films of Georgia, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, and Kazakhstan ends the work.
