"Little Vera" vs "Truffaldino iz Bergamo"

Mon Jun 5 22:16:41 UTC 2006

Elena Gapova <e.gapova at WORLDNET.ATT.NET> wrote:    A very belated reaction, of course:
  .........................Mine too, sorry.

"Little Vera" "deserves" a screening in a Slavic (gender, soial issues, or
perestroika etc) course, if not for its artistic merits (or maybe for them,
too), then for the social "bang" it produced. 

  ...........................Sorry, but the only real "bang" it produced was the understanding of how extremely good the mass media could be at manipulating people. They made a lot of noise in advance and made half a country go to the movies, even those who had never done it before. And then, having watched the movie, practically everybody was absolutely mad because they had waited for smth extraodinary good, considering how many good films had been created in the country, but got "ushat pomoev na golovu" instead. This means, the credit should be given to the media, or to those who were behind the campaign, but in no case to the film itself.
  Besides, American critics, those who commented on the movie after it had been released, found it "undeniably mediocre" tooâ¦ 

  It can be seen as "cultural
evidence" to many social anxieties of the time; it articulated, for the
first time, many of the issues that had been "undercurrent" for years: it
clearly "separated" sex from reproduction (these had been separated for
decades in real life, in how people behaved, but saying this publicly was
not comme il faut, as "there was no sex in the Soviet Union").

  ........................Maybe the word "sex" itself was not widely used, as well as many other words, but I canât say that it was forbidden to anybody to use other words for the same notion. I doubt that the fact that one element of "non-existing sex" used to have the name "izdelie" on its package convinced anybody in the country that it was supposed to be used for reproduction, meaning for non-sex. I seriously doubt that anybody tried to reproduce with its helpâ¦ 
  Besides, if the separation of sex from reproduction is the criteria, shouldât we treat then "Truffaldino iz Bergamo" as glasnost-era movie too, no matter that it was released in 1976. I donât remember what her name wasâ¦Milinda?.. Anyway, she said publicly, standing as if on a tribune, and even got applause afterwards:
  "Kogda b mne dali vlast', ja b kazhdomu nevernomu muzhchine vruchila b po odnoj zelenoj vetke! Togda vse goroda by prevratilis' v zelenye i pyshnye sady!"
  Voila! Chem vam ne glasnost? Was she talking about reproduction or about sex? Or did she mean that "nevernye muzhchiny" were those who played chess somewhere outside home?

It exposed the ruling mood of the perstroika: the society is in crisis,
smth. needs to be done.And the fact that this general social and political
anxiety found its articulation in the issues of sexuality (as in the US in
the 1970s) is of the utmost importance.

  .....................................Interesting example it is, in the brackets, but why so distant?..
  Sorry, but I doubt that Little Vera may be considered as the film raising any issues of sexuality. Besides, in 1988 there was no any social or political anxiety in the USSR evident enough to make the prototypes of the depicted heroes (belonging to the social milieu which normally doesnât launch any revolutions at all) either notice or feel it, or articulate it in any issues, the issues of sexuality including.The film did not expose the ruling mood of perestroika, but was created for inspiring a particular mood, i.e. cultural pessimism, and for preparing particular social layers for the procesesses, which, as a result, left them with what they have now. 

  Here is the link to a very good article on the topic (about "Little Vera" and other things): http://potrebnosti.globalrus.ru/lyrics/779161/

  I donât know what sexuality issues in the 70ties in the USA are meant, but if all those activities of militant feminists who even proclaimed marriage a legalized form of prostitution, etc., then sorry, thank God, there was nothing like this in the USSR at that time, as well as later. Actually, some sexuality issues were fixed in the USSR later, so to say, by the government, but _without_ any articulation and in such a way, that the country noticed only the final outcome of that fixing. Articulating sexual issues is taking place in the former USSR only now. Due to the fact that one more Western party, with a nice name "The Charity, Freedom and Diversity" (translated into Russian as "partija miloserdija, svobody i mnogoobrazija") made its agenda at last public, even those who didnât believe it earlier realize now what all those militant new-culture-activists and their supporters are up to in reality. Impressive program, real victory of democratic forces, but it seems
 that in the former USSR this victory makes people dream about autocracy, and stimulates even more linguistic creativity at all language levels. 

  This means that the film "Little Vera" maybe deserves mentioning in classes where students are supposed to study a revolution anatomy in general, which is probably universe, but in the Slavic studies it is good only for supporting negative stereotypes of Russians, to my mind. 

  Regards,
  Maryna Vinarska

  P.S. Due to "there was no sex in the Soviet Union" I recalled one more very good movie - "Deja vu", Odesskaja kinostudija together with Zebra Film Productions (Poland), 1989, comedy about an American gangster who had to set some problem in Odessa. Actually this is a parody of a gangster film, and a very good one. Highly recommend to watch it!

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