Aleksei Balabanov - Blog Posts

Brat (Brother) | 1997 | dir. Alexei Balabanov | Russia

Cinematography by Sergey Astakhov

Brat (Brother) | 1997 | dir. Aleksei Balabanov | Russia

Writer: Aleksey Balabanov Cinematography by Sergey Astakhov

Brat (Brother) | 1997 | dir. Aleksei Balabanov | Russia

Writer: Aleksey Balabanov Cinematography by Sergey Astakhov

Brat (Brother) | 1997 | dir. Aleksey Balabanov | Russia

Writer: Aleksey Balabanov Cinematography by Sergey Astakhov

Of Freaks and Men (1998) | dir. Alexei Balabanov

When evil triumphs, humour turns black. Glimpses of turn-of-the-century porn has an uncomfortable, humiliating look to it. Balabanov massages human nature's ugly heart. The film is so original and startling, it appears playful, when really it concerns an abuse of power that feeds off trust and decency, perverting both.

The film is shot as a pastiche of silent cinema, without Chaplin's famous fast motion. In old St Petersburg the bourgeoisie live innocent and privileged lives, while in the basement of an abandoned building tight-lipped Johan (Sergei Makovetsky), with his smirking, sinister sidekick (Victor Sukhorukov), organises nude spanking sessions

which are photographed and sold to sado-masochistic postcard collectors, when not purloined by their naughty maids.

There are moments in this deliciously subversive film when you suspect Alexei Balabanov is being satirical and those scenes of pornographers taking over the grand houses, only to corrupt them with their nasty habits, refer to organised crime's stranglehold on the Russian economy, not to mention the state of the nation.

Of Freaks and Men (1998) | dir. Alexei Balabanov

Cinematography by  Sergey Astakhov

"Of Freaks and Men" is both a dark gem and a perplexing marketing conundrum. Pic will get fest kudos, but it's too much ribald fun for "serious"art film lovers and too offbeat in its birth-of-Russian-porno subject matter and stylized cinematography to catch any significant arthouse B.O. Its outside chance of success rests upon savvy exploitation of its undeniable qualities and quirky period parlor hijinx.

References for this picture, shot almost entirely in a tinted-sepia re-creation of period daguerreotypes, are tough to find, but one could look to David Lynch’s penchant for dwarves and Canadian cult auteur Guy Maddin’s oddball musings. Pic also bears strong stylistic resemblance to Steven Soderbergh’s ill-fated B&W “Kafka.” But “Freaks” contrasts strongly with all of the above in its fidelity to its sympathetic characters and the central premise that sex is the sinister undoing of both the innocent and the evil...

Thought-provoking, funny, disturbing and utterly involving, “Freaks” marks a terrific follow-up to Balabanov’s award-winning ’97 Russian box office hit, “Brother.” Cinematographer Sergei Astakhov’s carefully modulated and composed sepia-tone images are both disconcerting and hypnotically mood-enhancing. While the distancing effect may be counterproductive to the drama, it does lend an aura of the faded, forlorn days when the combination of sex and photography was new.