Балабанов. Перекрестки

Jesús Palacios. Gangsters & Angels: Balabanov & New Russian Film Noir

With “Brat”, it’s sequel and other criminal tales from the New Russia, Aleksei Balabanov, with a distinctive and personal cinematic style, surprised Russian and international film critics and audiences, rediscovering the power and possibilities of genre cinema as social, moral and historical commentary of the reality. As a result of this films and others so stunning and masterful as “Cargo 200”, Balabanov re-inventing some kind of genuine Russian noir, appropriating topics and archetypal elements from the mythology of gangster American movies, film noir, thriller and even western, through his reification as a new style, absolutely of his own but mixed with key elements from Russian reality and tradition. With auteur sensibility, but with an eye for the audience, Balabanov created some of the more impressive and intelligent examples of a perfect balance between film d’auteur and popular genre movies, unparalleled before in Russian cinema.