nadine kindly invites you for RusClub #24.

[NL] RusClub is een platform voor Russische cinema. Alexandra Dementieva gidst het publiek doorheen de geschiedenis van de Russische cinema aan de hand van geselecteerde films. De RusClubs vinden plaats in morpho (Gallaitstraat 80, Schaarbeek). De deuren openen om 7u30 en de eerste film start om 8u.

[EN] RusClub is a platform for Russian cinema. Alexandra Dementieva selects Russian movies and guides you through the history of Russian cinema. RusClub takes place at morpho (Gallaitstraat 80, Schaarbeek). The doors open at 7:30pm and the first movie starts at 8pm.

The movie that will be shown is:
Happy Days (1991 – 86min)
Directed by Aleksey Balabanov

“Happy Days is first film of Balabanov. It’s a cliched homage to Samuel Beckett, about the picaresque adventures of a sad-eyed hero, who leaves hospital after an unspecified brain operation.

The bleak lives of Balabanov’s down-and-outs are beautifully captured in the film’s black and white photography, which brings out the decaying textures of St Petersburg in exquisite detail. The city has long been used as a back-drop for films, stretching right back to the early Soviet classics, such as Sergei Eisenstein’s cinematic recreation of the Russian Revolution. But whereas for Eisenstein the city was a heroic and revolutionary city, Balbanov’s vision owes more to the 19th-century author Nikolai Gogol. Gogol’s St Petersburg is the city which lies and deceives – a vast metropolis that dwarfs the ordinary individual.

The drawing shown at the end of ‘Happy Days’ seems to give the viewers the hope that, at least, if not happy, there will still be be days… And maybe tearful nights as in the words of the song played in the soundtrack, but it won’t end in a tragedy as the immediately preceding gesture from the protagonist was almost forewarning.”