Description

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The collection presents the author's texts devoted to the "Asian vector" of Soviet cinema. The author develops several ideas or themes: the confrontation between Center and Periphery, Metropolis and Province, the intra-plot conflict between antagonist and protagonist and the blurring of boundaries and distinctions between them, and, as a consequence, the rebellion of the individual against the ideological discourse and the repressive Center. The themes that are somehow visible are manifested through the narrative and directorial constructs of the films and the formal official philosophy that dominated the period of the films' creation. The result of all these processes was the collapse of all "progressist" aspirations (associated with the idea of scientific and technological progress) and hopes for a bright future in the "country of Soviets" as a result of the double or joint mimicry, on the one hand, of the system and its apparatuses of people, officials, institutions, parties, and ideological discourse, and on the other hand, of the common man, the ordinary inhabitant of the country.
The films in question were made in the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s in Asian studios of the Soviet Union by local directors or based on scripts on "East Asian" themes.