Young Filmmakers on the Historical Past: Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole

Contemporary Russian cinematography surprisingly ‘fell in love’ with the Soviet past. Many filmmakers see the detailed reconstruction of the past as a priority, even if the film is not historical. Sergei Eisenstein identified two ways of working with the past in film and television: the past can be "dressed up in the attire of today ─ you can make it present-day", or you can "put the past into the attire of today", "become familiar with the past, become a contemporary of and participant in a bygone event". Which of these ways do young Russian filmmakers choose to address a historical past they have not witnessed?

Kantemir Balagov’s film Beanpole (2019), set in Leningrad in the winter of 1945-1946, was praised by critics in no small part precisely for its surprising fidelity in depicting the ‘world of things’. Even criticisms of the film, which questioned the verisimilitude of the plot, invariably noted the high degree of realism in the everyday details. According to the director, when working on the film, there was a desire to bring the story of the fate of women who lived in the post-war period into modern times. However, the realisation came that ‘this story has artistic value at that particular time’. The film Beanpole is not just another historical film about the war and the post-war period or about post-traumatic syndrome. It is the author’s own story with its own symbolism and metaphors, which we will try to decipher at our next meeting. The lecture will also explain the connection between the story of the two friends and the historical reality of the post-Siege city.

The lecture will be held online in Russian with simultaneous interpreting into Spanish.

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