Mythological Conceptualization in A.O. Balabanov’s Films and Interpretation of “The River”

This paper attempts to uncover the semantic message of “The River”, an unreleased film that was supposed to be a new program product in the filmwork of Aleksei Oktyabrinovich Balabanov. At the beginning of the article, the author reveals the director’s method of conceptualizing his films that appeal to the mythological conceptualization of the narrative structure in addition to the plot and genre of the film. The latter is clarified in the process of comparing the films with the structure of a fairy tale, which has also already been noted by some researchers of Balabanov’s movies. The novelty of the article is connected with a philosophical analysis of the indicated conceptualization of “The River” film-project (2002) and an attempt to identify aesthetic effects and symbolic meanings encoded in the film production.

The author believes that the close attention of “The River” project’s director to the cultures of traditional society, and especially the culture of northerners — the Tofalars (Tofa), the Yakuts (Sakha), is due to the proximity of the traditional cultures of the North and the Arctic to the mythological method of conception in culture. In this sense, “The River” project was, in all likelihood, to become the director’s experiment in building an archaic topos with a crystalline mythological concept of the abundance of the natural over the cultural and the corresponding mentality and psychology of the actions of the “old era”. The main thing in this cinematic experiment was to take the culture “off the table” and analyze the natural spontaneity in human nature, with the subsequent “splitting” of mythological consciousness, breaking the epic circle of tradition with a symbolic outcome, through the concept of “boat” and “river”, to a universal human principle, metaphysical topos of thought. The prophetic gift of the director, embodied in a number of his films, is interpreted on the example of “The River” and reflects the message for the path of self-development of the cultures of Russian peoples.

1. Balabanov. Perekrestki: po materialam Pervykh Balabanovskikh chtenii [Balabanov. Crossroads: According to the Materials of the First Balabanov Readings]. St. Petersburg, Seans Publ., 2017, 191 p.

2. Stishova E.M. Rossiiskoe kino v poiskakh real’nosti. Svidetel’skie pokazaniya [Russian Cinema in Search of Reality: Eyewitness Testimony]. Moscow, Agraf Publ., 2013, 460 p.

3. Selyanov S. “On lyubil sil’noe, otkrovennoe vyskazyvanie, radikal’noe deistvie”: Sergei Sel’yanov ob Aleksee Balabanove. Ch. 2 [“He Loved a Strong, Frank Statement, Radical Action”: Sergey Selyanov about Aleksei Balabanov. Part 2]. Available at: https://rusrep.ru/balabanov2 (accessed 14.05.2020).

4. Sergeeva T. “Reka”: ot istoka do ust’ya. O fil’me rasskazyvayut: Vladimir Dmitriev, Evert Payazatyan, Sergei Sel’yanov, Aleksei Balabanov, Sergei Astakhov, Pavel Parkhomenko, Maksim Belovolov, Tamara Frid, Nadezhda Vasil’eva, Andrei Chertkov [“The River”: From Source to Mouth. About the Film: Vladimir Dmitriev, Evert Payazatyan, Sergey Selyanov, Aleksei Balabanov, Sergey Astakhov, Pavel Parkhomenko, Maksim Belovolov, Tamara Frid, Nadezhda Vasilyeva, Andrey Chertkov]. Available at: http://www.kinozapiski.ru/ru/article/sendvalues/188/ (accessed 14.05.2020).

5. Uskov O. Yakutskii rezhisser rasskazal o mistike na s’’emkakh “Reki” Balabanova [A Yakut Director Talked about Mysticism on the Set of “The River” by Balabanov]. Available at: https://rg.ru/2016/05/31/iakutskij-rezhisser-rasskazal-o-mistike-na-semkah-reki-balabanova.html (accessed 14.05.2020).

6. Balabanov A. Kino — eto energiya, ty ee vse vremya otdaesh’, s kazhdym fil’mom [Cinema Is Energy, You Radiate It All the Time, with Every Movie]. Available at: https://kinoart.ru/interviews/kino-eto-energiya-ty-ee-vse-vremya-otdaesh-s-kazhdym-filmom (accessed 14.05.2020).

7. Yarko A.N. The Script and the Film as a Single Composition (Based on the Script and Film “Trofim” by A.O. Balabanov), Literatura — Teatr — Kino: problemy dialoga: kollektivnaya monografiya [Literature — Theater — Cinema: Problems of Dialogue: collective monograph]. Samara, Samarskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet Publ., 2014, pp. 147—157 (in Russ.).

8. Petrovskaya E. “On the Side of the New Barbarians”: Balabanov’s Semiotics of a Generation, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie [New Literary Observer], 2018, no. 1 (149), pp. 489—508 (in Russ.).

9. NOSTALGIA07. “Reka” Balabanova [NOSTALGIA07. “The River” by Balabanov]. Available at: https://nostalgia07.livejournal.com/5989.html (accessed 14.05.2020).

10. Mamiova E.M. Rock Music in a Film as a Means of Typifying the Life of a Movie Character (On the Example of Aleksei Balabanov’s Film “Brother”), Vremennik Zubovskogo instituta [Annals of the Zubov Institute], 2015, issue 1 (14), pp. 113—132 (in Russ.).

11. Zhurkova D.A. “Brother 2” by Alexei Balabanov: The Unread Love Confession, Nauka televideniya [The Art and Science of Television], 2018, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 92—114 (in Russ.).

12. Zhurkova D.A. Musical Dramaturgy of Alexei Balabanov’s “Morphine” Movie, Khudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2018, no. 4 (26), pp. 252—271 (in Russ.).

13. Kuznetsova L.V. Poetics of Space in Cinema Representations of Literary Text, Ural’skii filologicheskii vestnik. Seriya: Russkaya literatura XX—XXI vekov: napravleniya i techeniya [Ural Philological Bulletin. Series: Russian Literature of the 20th—21st Centuries: Directions and Trends], 2016, no. 3, pp. 261—272 (in Russ.).

14. Lepikhova I.V. Hermeneutics of Movie Reality, Kontekst i refleksiya: filosofiya o mire i cheloveke [Context and Reflection: Philosophy of the World and Human Being], 2014, no. 5, pp. 64—85 (in Russ.).

15. Dotsenko E.G. Petersburg as a Space in Aleksey Balabanov’s “Happy Days”, Ural’skii filologicheskii vestnik. Seriya: Russkaya klassika: dinamika khudozhestvennykh system [Ural Philological Bulletin. Series: Russian Classic: The Dynamics of Artistic Systems], 2014, no. 1, pp. 182—190 (in Russ.).

16. Kuznetsova L.V. An Image of Literary Hero on Screen: Intertextual Problems, Ural’skii filologicheskii vestnik. Seriya: Russkaya literatura XX—XXI vekov: napravleniya i techeniya [Ural Philological Bulletin. Series: Russian Literature of the 20th—21st Centuries: Directions and Trends], 2017, no. 3, pp. 155—164 (in Russ.).

17. Skryabina T.L. “A Cruel Talent”: F.M. Dostoevsky and Film Dramaturgy (A. Balabanov “Cargo 200”, V. Sorokin “4”, Woody Allen “Match Point”), Kul’turologiya [Cultural Studies], 2011, no. 4 (59), pp. 23—29 (in Russ.).

18. Sikoeva E.Yu. Song as an Object of Citation in Films Directed by A. Balabanov, Vestnik Krasnodarskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta kul’tury [Bulletin of the Krasnodar State Institute of Culture], 2017, no. 3 (11), pp. 24—32 (in Russ.).

19. Sukhoverov A. Teenager’s Space. Aleksei Balabanov’s Film Language, Iskusstvo kino [Film Art], 2001, no. 1, pp. 65—74 (in Russ.).

20. Orishchenko S.S. Tradition or Where the Road of Death Leads (Alexey Balabanov’s Movie “I Want Too”), Izvestiya Samarskogo nauchnogo tsentra Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriya: Sotsial’nye, gumanitarnye, mediko-biologicheskie nauki [Proceedings of the Samara Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Series: Social, Humanitarian, Medicobiological Sciences], 2016, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 101—104 (in Russ.).

21. Rakhmanova T.D. The Phenomenon of Road in the Russian Cinema of the 2000s—2010s, Aktual’nye voprosy razvitiya industrii kino i televideniya v sovremennoi Rossii: sbornik nauchnykh trudov, posvyashchennyi Godu rossiiskogo kino: v 2 ch. [Topical Development Issues of the Film and Television Industry in Modern Russia: Collected Scientific Papers Dedicated to the Year of Russian Cinema: in 2 parts]. St. Petersburg, 2016, part 2, pp. 110—118 (in Russ.).

22. Grigoryan K.E. Last Hero of the Russian Cinematography, Vestnik Adygeiskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 2: Filologiya i iskusstvovedenie [Bulletin of the Adyghe State University. Series 2: Philology and the Arts], 2011, no. 1, pp. 170—173 (in Russ.).

23. Struktura volshebnoi skazki [The Structure of a Fairy Tale]. Moscow, Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Gumanitarnyi Universitet Publ., 2001, 232 p.

24. Sokolov D.Yu. Malen’kaya teoreticheskaya glava No 5 “Struktura volshebnoi skazki” [Small Theoretical Chapter No. 5 “The Structure of a Fairy Tale”]. Available at: https://psy.wikireading.ru/54721 (accessed 14.05.2020).

25. Gracheva E., Vostrikov A. Predel skorbi: O nezakonchennom “yakutskom” proekte Alekseya Balabanova “Reka” [The Limit of Sorrow: On Aleksei Balabanov’s Unfinished “Yakut” Project “The River”]. Available at: https://chapaev.media/articles/4541 (accessed 14.05.2020).

26. Zaks L.A. Aesthetic Values in Contemporary Art: The Classical and the Post-Nonclassical, Studia Culturae, 2015, no. 26, pp. 64—72 (in Russ.).

27. Pudov A.G. Natsional’noe bytie na teatral’nykh podmostkakh [National Being on the Stage]. Yakutsk, CMIK Publ., 2016, 92 p.

28. Pudov A.G. Identification of the Productive Paradigm of the Artistic Culture of Yakutia, Observatoriya kul’tury [Observatory of Culture], 2019, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 251—262. DOI: 10.25281/2072-3156-2019-16-3-251-262 (in Russ.).

29. Avchenko V. Yakutskaya reka Balabanova. “Amerikanets”, “Reka”, “Kochegar”: sibirskie i dal’nevostochnye zamysly kul’tovogo rezhissera [The Yakut River of Balabanov. “The American”, “The River”, “The Stoker”: Siberian and Far Eastern Ideas of the Cult Director]. Available at: https://dv.land/people/yakutskaya-reka-balabanova (accessed 14.05.2020).

30. Dotsenko E.G. Beckett in Russian in Aleksey Balabanov’s Happy Days: Summing Up, Filologicheskii klass [Philological Class], 2013, no. 3 (33), pp. 114—118 (in Russ.).