News

Film-maker known for his dark take on post-Soviet Russia

Aleksei Balabanov, who has died aged 54 after suffering a seizure, saw himself as the "anti-establishment rock'n'roller of Russian film" with an aim to make "scandalous, harsh cinema". Many of Balabanov's films are metaphorical black comedies that gaze unflinchingly at the bleakness and violence of the last days of communism and post-Soviet society, with classic Russian rock music on the soundtrack. His first two features, Happy Days (1991) and The Castle (1994), were based on Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka respectively, and Balabanov's nihilistic oeuvre also takes in Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Mikhail Bulgakov, whose Notes of a Young Doctor was the basis of Balabanov's Morphia (2008).

"I don't make movies with ideas. Ideas make for bad cinema," he said. "I don't make my movies for the intelligentsia, but for the people. That's why they like my films." This was demonstrated by the commercial...

Above: A TV Dante (1991).

Below you will find the original language enteries for Notebook's series of commentaries and remembrances on Raúl Ruiz, entitled Raúl Ruiz: Blind Man's Bluff. Links are provided for the English-language translations by David Phelps.

Plus: Bonus, untranslated article by Cristián Sánchez Garfias, Klimt y La Muerte Recobrada, at the bottom of this post!

Recuerdos Chilenos

Había recién llegado a Nueva York a fines de los 90s, estaba completamente perdido, superado por la experiencia de tener que mutar, de dejar de ser solamente chileno para entender esta multicultural y devoradora ciudad, cuando me encontré con una raída copia en VHS de ‘On Top of the Whale’, un ovni cinematográfico que, además de dejarme aún más descolocado, me tuvo 5 minutos llorando de la risa. En medio de todo aquello que le daba vida esta enigmática cinta, aparece una de las vociferadas - o chuchadas, como dicen en Chile- más notables,...

Above: Ruiz's La recta provincia (2007).

Notebook is unfurling a series of tributes to Raúl Ruiz entitled Blind Man's Bluff: along with some previously published articles, here in English for the first time, the bulk a compilation of new, shorter pieces from a few generous critics and Ruizians on favorite moments from a vast, subterranean filmography. For more from Raúl Ruiz: Blind Man's Bluff see the Table of Contents.

Cofralandes, Chilean Rhapsody (2002)

There's a scene in Cofralandes, Chilean Rhapsody, the series of documentaries (?) for which Ruiz returned to Chilean filmmaking in 2002, that seems fascinating to me for its strangeness. Without any rational justification, Ruiz, who acts in the film, takes a TV remote and talks into it as if it were a cordless phone. It's one of those scenes that seem to have been dreamt by the viewer, but turn out to be revealing of different aspects of Ruiz as filmmaker.

Above: Le film à venir (1997).

Notebook is unfurling a series of tributes to Raúl Ruiz entitled Blind Man's Bluff: along with some previously published articles, here in English for the first time, the bulk a compilation of new, shorter pieces from a few generous critics and Ruizians on favorite moments from a vast, subterranean filmography. For more from Raúl Ruiz: Blind Man's Bluff see the Table of Contents.

The Golden Boat (1990)

A man follows a trail of beat-up shoes left discarded along a New York sidewalk. They lead him to an older man, who sits crouched on the street, crying. “This, my son, is not my place,” the older man proclaims—and then stabs himself. So begins The Golden Boat—“a game between soap opera and reality,” as Ruiz called it—his first film in America, made in exile over a few long weekends during a teaching stint at Harvard.

Notebook is unfurling a series of tributes to Raúl Ruiz entitled "Blind Man's Bluff": the bulk a compilation of new, shorter pieces from a few generous critics and Ruizians on favorite moments from a vast, subterranean filmography. Beside these original tributes, the filmmaker and critic Luc Moullet has graciously offered his piece, written for a 2003 retrospective, on Ruiz’s 1987 short, Brise-Glace; the piece is included below for the first time in English translation, as well as in the original French below. For more from "Raúl Ruiz: Blind Man's Bluff," please check the Table of Contents.

It’s a sort of half-hour long sketch, inserted into an unusual omnibus co-produced by the French ministry of Foreign Affairs and Sweden, and centered on a Scandinavian ship called the “brise-glace,” “The Icebreaker.” The other two parts, both commonplace, are closer to documentary.

Ruiz’s film belongs to the extraordinary. There are a few humans on-board,...

Above: Manoel dans l'île des merveilles (1984).

Notebook is unfurling a series of tributes to Raúl Ruiz entitled Blind Man's Bluff: along with some previously published articles, here in English for the first time, the bulk a compilation of new, shorter pieces from a few generous critics and Ruizians on favorite moments from a vast, subterranean filmography. For more from Raúl Ruiz: Blind Man's Bluff see the Table of Contents.

On Top Of The Whale (1981)

Given his immense success with the impossible Proust, Ruiz may have proven the ideal director for Nabokov, especially his hilarious Pnin. Ruiz and Nabokov were well matched with their shared themes of memory and exile, rapture and obsession; their fondness for elaborate word/image play; their grave facetiousness. Imagine what Ruiz might have done with that vertiginous “segue” at the start of Chapter Four of Pnin in which Victor’s nocturnal fantasy imagines his...

Nadie Dijo Nada" />

Above: Nadie Dijo Nada (1971).

Over the next couple weeks, Notebook will be unfurling a series of tributes to Raúl Ruiz entitled Blind Man's Bluff: along with some previously published articles, here in English for the first time, the bulk a compilation of new, shorter pieces from a few generous critics and Ruizians on favorite moments from a vast, subterranean filmography. For more from Raúl Ruiz: Blind Man's Bluff see the Table of Contents.

Chilean Memories

Above: On Top of the Whale (1982).

I had recently arrived in New York in the late 90s and was completely lost, overwhelmed by the need to adapt, to no longer be just chileno, and to understand this multicultural, all-consuming city, when I found myself with a worn-out VHS tape of On Top of the Whale, an alien film that only left me feeling more displaced but crying with laughter for five minutes straight.

Can Luke convince Noah that Reid was just giving him mouth-to-mouth? Join us for the fun at 2 Pm Est!

2:05 Pm Est: Noah is still creepily peering through the window when Richard walks up and says "who are you creepily peering at it?" Noah asks Richard who the guys is with Luke, and Richard says "That's your doctor, dude. I told you he was hot."

Luke and Reid are still going hot and heavy when Luke sees Noah creepily peering through the window. He pulls away and says "Noah is creepily peering through the window." Reid says "relax, he can't creepily see that far. All he can creepily see is shapes and colors." Luke goes outside, and Noah asks if he and Richard can come in. Luke says "yeah, but you should know I'm not alone." Noah says "I know."

Henry and Vienna are playing a sex game called Caped Crusader.

MOSCOW -- Kinotavr, Russia's national film festival, on Thursday announced its competition lineup and a sponsorship package worth $2 million. The annual film bash held at the Black Sea resort of Sochi will field eight debuts among its 17 competition features, all of which are Russian premieres. They include Alexander Balabanov's new movie Zhmurki (Blind Man's Bluff), a comedy that features Moscow Film Festival president and leading director Nikita Mikhalkov in the role of a mafia gang boss. The festival -- which last month announced new ownership and management under Alexander Rodniansky, general director of STS Television, and Igor Tolstunov, deputy general director of STS -- will focus on professional and industry concerns, Tolstunov said at a Moscow news conference.

MOSCOW -- Nikita Mikhalkov, president of the Moscow Film Festival and one of Russia's best-known directors, will play the part of a gangland boss in a new film by director Alexsei Balabanov, Mikhalkov's production studio Tri-T said Wednesday. Mikhalkov -- who last appeared onscreen in the 1998 Julia Ormond starrer "The Barber of Siberia" -- will play mafia boss Sergei Mikhailovich in "Zhmurki" (Blind Man's Buff), produced by award-winning producer Sergei Selyanov's company STV. Shot at Moscow's Gorky Film Studios by Balabanov -- whose credits include such Russian boxoffice hits as gangster movie "Brat" (Brother) and Chechen war drama "Vojna" (War) -- the film, billed as a madcap comedy, is due for release in Russia in early June. Set in the 1990s during Russia's wild post-Soviet days, the movie stars many of Russia's most popular young actors, including Alexei Panin and well-established names such as Viktor Sukhorukov and singer Garik Sukachev.