Hobbes in Russia. My favorite movies about girls during social collapse.
Evgenia's weekend movie recs.
As I keep being reminded by American current events of the 90s Russia, I want to write about a few films that center girls in the chaotic and dangerous world of a collapsed society. I feel that Americans on average are not used to real political chaos and violence at all. There have been no violent revolutions or wars on its territory, and civil war is a distant memory. So I think Americans underestimate the possible consequences of the current crisis and the instability and violence that it could be ushering in.
No doubt for America’s deindustrialized lumpen communities of opioid-ridden poor states, this kind of violence might be something mundane. But other Americans, and especially white middle-class ones, are not used to seeing this kind of violence perpetrated against them. They are the people who are usually spared it here and are rather coddled in comparison to the world at large.
So I think these movies are a good window into the world where the social contract is not upheld anymore, and only strength and brutality rules. Russia in the 90s was in such disarray, as I wrote before, that it barely could produce movies. But those that it did make were mostly dramas in the style of Italian neo-realism, which was fitting for a country that was being torn apart politically and economically. The main characters in these films were bandits because main characters in life were bandits, too.
So the two movies I want you to watch are Sisters (2001) and Lilya 4-ever (2002). They have the same actress, Oksana Akinshina, in the leading role — a simple, pretty girl-next-door type.