[Кочегар] Domestic Space Prominently Features a Warm Burning Stove, and Mobsters Are Told to Burn Russia, 2010 Their Hit Lists After Reading

The oven is at the center of both visual and The Stoker verbal play in the film. Each character’s [Кочегар] domestic space prominently features a warm burning stove, and mobsters are told to burn Russia, 2010 their hit lists after reading. Color, 87 minutes The film, set in the mid 1990s outside of St. Petersburg, tells the story of an ethnic Yakut, Director: Aleksei Balabanov Major Skriabin, a shell-shocked veteran of the Screenplay: Aleksei Balabanov Afghan-Soviet War, who works as a stoker. Cinematography: Aleksandr Simonov Living in the incinerator room, the Major Production Designer: Anastasiia Karimullina shovels coal all day, turning a blind eye to his Composer: Valerii Didiulia former military comrade turned mobster, the Sound: Maksim Belovolov Sergeant, who arrives to dispose of bodies. Producer: Sergei Sel'ianov Balabanov’s mobsters are typical caricatures, Production: STV Film Company taken not only from his previous films such as Cast: Mikhail Skriabin, Iurii Matveev, Dead Man’s Bluff (2005), but also Hollywood Aleksandr Mosin, Aida Tumutova, Anna films. The main hitman, who displays no Korotaeva, Viacheslav Tel'nov emotion and kills with machine-like efficiency, Awards: White Elephant 2010 (Best Feature resembles the iconic character of Anton Chigurh Film, Best Director, Best Music, Best from Ethan and Joel Coen’s recent film No Production Design), Window to Europe 2010 Country for Old Men (2007). A deadly love (Special Jury Prize, Prize of Russian Film triangle between the stoker’s daughter, the Experts and Critics), Stalker 2010 (Best Feature sergeant’s daughter, and the hitman unites all of Film) these characters. Almost all of Balabanov’s films feature The oven represents a hospitable place a meta-narrative about cinema or other aspects in Russian peasant culture. It occupies the of cultural production. The stoker occupies his center of the house, and is the symbol of vitality time by writing his own short story of a Russian and health as depicted throughout folklore, art, criminal sent into exile in Yakutia during the and literature. Likewise, the fireplace was a nineteenth century. The story serves as an lavish fixture in Imperial Russian culture, allegory for the abuses of Russians across their decorated in every room of the palaces of the history, as the exile rapes a Yakut woman, Tsar. Aleksei Balabanov’s most recent film, The whose husband beats her for this transgression. Stoker, takes this venerable symbol of life from Some reviews have mentioned that this inserted the Russian cultural tradition and transforms it story is a continuation of Balabanov’s, The River into a visual marker for death: murdered victims (2002), a film that took place in Yakutia, but of the Russian mob are incinerated one after was cut short after the death of the lead actress another throughout the film, as Balabanov Tujaara Svinoboeva in a car accident during the disposes of his characters with little remorse. film’s production. Other reviews go as far as to interpret the stoker autobiographically, saying have us versus them. But here, everyone is the character’s clothing resembles Balabanov’s. ours.” The character can additionally be read as a Andrew Chapman throwback to the artists, filmmakers, and authors who during the Soviet period were forced to take up employment in menial jobs (“dvorniki”), as Aleksei Balabanov their works were not published. As much as Balabanov constructs the Aleksei Oktiabrinovich Balabanov was born in film around the image of the stove, it is driven Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) on 25 February 1959. by its music. The importance of music is not He graduated from the translation department of unfamiliar for Balabanov, who prominently the Gor'kii Pedagogical Institute in 1981. He features music and musicians in many of his worked as an assistant director at Sverdlovsk films beginning with Brother (1997). The sound Studios from 1983 to 1987. In 1990 he editing in The Stoker can be seen as a graduated from the Advanced Courses for continuation of Balabanov’s previous two films, Screenwriters and Directors in Moscow. Since Cargo 200 (2007) and Morphia (2008), in which his feature debut, Happy Days, he helped found film songs offer a maniacal and cynical the STV Film Company and has directed twelve accompaniment to the cruelty depicted on more films with the company, from art-house to screen. The musical score of The Stoker popular genre films. dominates almost every scene, at times almost drowning out conversations, and appearing Director Filmography during every important action in the film. Whereas many of Balabanov’s previous films 2010 The Stoker revolved around a series of titled vignettes or 2008 Morphia episodes that fade to black, The Stoker connects 2007 Cargo 200 the temporal-spatial distance between scenes by 2006 It Doesn’t Hurt using the musical score, which drives the back 2005 Dead Man’s Bluff and forth movement of characters walking from 2002 War location to location; this organization of the film 2002 The River is pedestrian in both the figurative and literal 2000 Brother 2 sense. 1998 Of Freaks and Men The Stoker is Balabanov’s 13th feature 1997 Brother film, a point emphasized in both the advertising 1995 Trofim (short) trailer and release date (13 October 2010). The 1994 The Castle Russian Film Symposium has screened all of 1991 Happy Days Balabanov’s feature films. This year’s theme, 1990 From the History of Aerostatics in “Other Russias, Russia’s others,” looks at the Russia (documentary) Russian film industry’s gaze into the periphery 1989 Egor and Nastia (documentary) of Russia: films have moved shooting locations away from the center cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, to offer a view of the provinces. Although Balabanov’s film is set in St. Petersburg, this is not the imperial city of Peter, nor the Soviet city of Lenin, but rather the faceless location of the outlying city of Kronstadt that could represent anywhere in Russia. Balabanov seems to be more interested in a question of the inner struggle that is going on within the borders of Russia. The stoker’s hopeless last lines in the film address this issue: “This isn’t war. War is different. There you .

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